


Stone, River, Wind

by Arukou



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Amputation, Cross-species Relationship, Harpy!Tony, Identity Porn, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nomad Steve Rogers, Slow Burn, Themes of slavery and dehuminization, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, hurt!Tony, knight!steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 07:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14848527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arukou/pseuds/Arukou
Summary: Tonepheny has lived a terrible life ever since he was first captured and forced into servitude, but his new master is like no master he's ever known before. This strange hedge knight seems to actually care.





	Stone, River, Wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MassiveSpaceWren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MassiveSpaceWren/gifts).



> For further (spoilery) elaboration on the themes of slavery, see chapter end notes.
> 
> Here is my RBB, based on MassiveSpaceWren's [lovely artwork](http://massivespacewren.tumblr.com/post/174577817643/here-is-my-art-for-cap-im-rbb-harpy-tony-is-not). Thank you for the lovely inspiration
> 
> This is my first time writing an extended fic while trying to stick to 616 characterization. I'm not sure to what extent I succeeded, but I did try. (Although, I also borrowed some MCU villains for ease of knowledge.) A huge thanks to [MusicalLuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalLuna/pseuds/MusicalLuna) and [ladyshadowdrake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyshadowdrake/pseuds/ladyshadowdrake) for all their cheerleading. Thanks also to ladyshadowdrake for the beta. I was extremely late in finishing this story, so all the mistakes are mine, not hers. A special thanks also to [Sineala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala) for letting me borrow Libby from [Like a Comet Streaming On](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3344072) and letting me change her into a horse.

The cage stank. It had stunk as long as he’d been in it. He shuddered to think of his own waste running on the rotting wood of the floor, though he tried his best to keep it cordoned off, away from the tiny corner where he sat because the cage was too low to stand in. He couldn’t remember how long he’d been locked away, fed nothing but watery gruel, poked at and prodded at by gawping onlookers. Too long. Seasons, years. All of it passing with a belly so used to hunger that it no longer pained him, a body so used to cramped quarters it didn’t try to move anymore.

In the early morning light, Tiberius wandered by and grinned in at Tonepheny. “Hello, pretty thing. Be good for the customers today.” He punctuated his order with a poke from his gaudy walking stick, and Tonepheny counted another bruise added to his mottled ribs. He couldn’t meet Tiberius’ eyes anymore, hadn’t been able to since the first time his wing had been broken as punishment. Punishment on punishment and he tried not to think about it, tried not to think about the stubbled ruined stumps where his magnificent wings had once been.

They were near the river, though which river, Tonepheny wasn’t sure. He thought perhaps the Aurum because of the scraggly forests, but he could barely remember the shape of Aspis anymore, the lay of the kingdom, demarcated by natural barriers. If he could only see from the air, he’d know immediately, but he couldn’t remember the taste of clouds anymore, the caress of sunlight on his back.

The villagers were trickling in, whispering behind their hands, staring openly, and Tonepheny as shamed, shamed by his filthy feathers, his skin-and-bones body, his very existence. Aspis was once such a good home to him, but shadows had crept into the land, and the king had turned against all the Creatures. He wished now that he’d fled sooner, but he’d discovered the hard way that there was no escape to be had, not anymore.

A little girl plucked one of his tail feathers and he whimpered, looking at her with baleful eyes. “Why would you do that?” he murmured, staring at the dingy red plumage in her clenched fist. Her mother gasped with fear and squirreled the girl away, glancing back with fearful eyes. He could her as she chided her daughter: “Don’t you know? Those beasts will curse you. You mustn’t touch them unless they’re dead, and even then, their spirits might take you.”

“But the fancy man said his feathers are magic.”

“Nonsense. We’re going back to the farm. We’ll waste no more time here.”

Tonepheny looked back down at his talons. His claws had been trimmed too short, and it hurt to curl his toes in, but he did it anyway, trying to remember what it felt like to perch in a tree or on a crag. His feathers, his claws, his wings, his life. Everything stolen by Tiberius, and by the slavers he’d bought Tonepheny from.

Though autumn chilled the nights, the day was growing hot, and Tonepheny could feel the temperature beating on his tight skin, taking ever more from him. More villagers, more jeers, and it all blurred together in his mind. He glanced up to see a knight in the crowd, towering over the peasants, staring right at him. He blinked slowly and considered begging for the king’s justice, but no. No other knight had listened. Why bother anymore? None of them cared.

His head swam with the heat, and without realizing what was happening, Tony slumped down to the floor of his filthy cage. Part of him shrank back in disgust, but most of him had lost the will to fight anymore. He was so hungry—Tiberius had denied him a meal three days standing for “insubordination”—and he couldn’t think straight. It wasn’t until a sharp vicious poke at his side that he realized he’d been nearly unconscious. He turned to see Tiberius berating him, but the words were so distant, so unimportant, Tonepheny could no longer make them out. They were all the same, all cruel and hateful. At last the words filtered through. “—don’t get up this instant, I’ll slit your belly. Up. Up, damn you.” Another vicious poke, and Tonepheny managed to curl in on himself, wondering if he tried hard enough he might shrink to nothing at all.

Tiberius was close now, hissing. “Fine. Fine, you stupid beast. Have it your way. I’ll sell your blood to them. Just you watch.” He turned away, blustering up his showmanship. “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Terror of the Skies, Tonathak, has decided to give you all a gift. He will bravely sacrifice his own life so that each of you can have a taste of harpy’s blood, a known and powerful healing medicine. Harpy’s blood, proven effective against boils, gout, arthritis, good for safe childbirth, all your needs will be solved with harpy’s blood. Only three silvers a bottle!”

The bastard. Even at the end he’d use Tonepheny’s life for his own profit. Tonepheny closed his eyes and tried to roll away, to show the gathering crowd his back. Let it end quickly. Let him go to the eyries of his ancestors; maybe there, he’d have wings again. Maybe there, he’d be free.

He waited and waited for the prick of the blade hidden in Tiberius’ cane, but it never came, and at last, Tonepheny glanced back, afraid and curious at the same time. The knight, the one he’d marked in the crowd earlier, stood between Tonepheny and his tormentor, and was hissing furiously at him, and while a few of the villagers lingered and watched with interest, most had disappeared elsewhere. It took a great deal of energy to focus on the conversation, and he could only catch every third word or so.

“… valuable … I don’t … give … my beast …”

“… could just … need … take him … fifty …”

Ah. A buyer. The knight was a buyer. Tonepheny turned away again, and wondered what fresh hell awaited him. As he shifted, the magic chains at his neck, wrists, and ankles dug in, the infections beneath aching with the cruel bite of metal. Behind him, there was the clink of coins, the deal done, his fate placed in yet another human’s hands. The iron door creaked open and Tiberius touched the magic chain, freeing its tail end and yanking Tonepheny cruelly toward his new master. Ownership was transferred with a quick incantation, his life traded like so much dead fish, and the chain was placed in the knight’s hand, where it magically bound itself to his finger, stretching for a moment before relaxing into its new place.

“But how do I …”

“Piss?” Tiberius asked crassly. “You just tie it to a tree branch or something. So long as it’s bound to something else, it’ll let your hand go.”

“That’s not what I—“

“Pleasure doing business. Enjoy the dumb little beast.” He turned and patted Tonepheny’s cheek, his palm flat and hard, stinging Tonepheny’s taut, dry skin. “You were so pretty once. Shame.” As if he hadn’t been the one to destroy Tonepheny’s body. He walked away, whistling jauntily, swinging his cane so that it slammed against each set of bars of the cages that filled out his wretched little Creature carnival. Tonepheny flinched as the siren shrank into his shallow tub, the sphinx hissed with displeasure, the unicorn clanged her horn against the iron. Cruel bastard.

The knight was leaning over him, and this close, Tonepheny realized he was huge. No wonder he’d towered over the villagers; he very nearly blocked out what little sunlight reached inside the cage.

“Can you stand? We should get away as soon as we can, before he changes his mind.”

Tonepheny couldn’t remember the last time he’d been permitted to stand. It had been a long time ago, when Tiberius had still been making him perform in the horrible purple and gold tent, when he’d still been able to fly on his magic chain. There were hands on him, the knight, leather on skin, leather on his bruises. Involuntarily, Tonepheny groaned.

“I’m sorry. I just … I think I’ll have to carry you. I’m sorry.” Before he could even grab for something, anything, to keep him out of the human’s grasp, he was hauled up, placed on a shoulder hard with scale mail, padded only with a woolen cloak. Tonepheny groaned again when his empty stomach came to rest on that jagged shoulder, and he felt the knight’s hands tighten on him. “Forgive me.”

He was dizzy again now, his vision blurring with the swaying ground. The urge to kick, to fight his way to freedom, had long since died; he knew, after long hours of trial and error, of making his own flesh bleed, there was no way to break the magical bonds with only his own strength, and even if he could take them off, what then. “Why didn’t you just let him finish me?” he asked, though he couldn’t even tell if the words were intelligible, his mouth was so dry. “I could’ve been free.”

There was no answer, not that he’d been expecting one. Tonepheny was jostled up onto a horse, draped across the saddle like a sack of potatoes, and he could see her looking back at him, her liquid black eyes sharp. The knight was in front of him, patting the horse’s neck, the chain stretched to the hand that touched her. He urged them onto the road, and Tonepheny bounced along painfully, unable to even push himself up into a more comfortable seat. His eyes slid closed and he longed for … for … the strike was unexpected, hard on his side, and he blinked confusedly, staring up at the rump of the horse. His new master was bent over him, huge, leather-clad hands fluttering.

“Can you hear me? Do you hear me? Come on, wake up.”

The shock of the hard ground was clearing away now, leaving Tonepheny with more dull throbbing.

“I’m going to have to tie you to the saddle,” the knight said, hauling Tonepheny up again. “Just hold on. I don’t want to go too far. I have things to do here, still, and you’re sick. You need rest.”

Ah. So he wanted Tonepheny in better condition. For what though? The slavers who’d first captured Tonepheny and bound him had made him forge weaponry so they could wage war with neighboring nations. Life then hadn’t been as bad; they'd kept him well fed and clean and never hurt him, because he needed his strength to work the forge. Their words had been cruel, but he had managed along, and sometimes even enjoyed the praise they gave his work, even if he himself was never mentioned. Those same weapons, though, had eventually slaughtered the slavers who'd owned him, and he'd been sold off to Tiberius because there was no one left who would vouch for Tonepheny’s skill. And Tiberius had no compunctions about hurting a harpy. Without his wings and without a trade, he shuddered to imagine why the knight might want him healthy again.

He was lifted unceremoniously back up, this time upright in the saddle rather than draped, and a length of rope was tied round his thighs and the horse’s middle. He slumped down on her silky white neck, and she snorted at him, her ears flicking back and forth. The water skin against his lips was unexpected, and he slitted his eyes to look down at the knight. He still seemed so big, but now he was lower than Tonepheny, and his wide smile seemed earnest. Of course Tiberius had seemed earnest, too, at first. Still, Tonepheny was thirsty, so he weakly nodded, and sipped at the water that the knight carefully tilted into his mouth. It was almost hot with the midday heat, but it was still welcome, and Tonepheny took what he could manage before his neck collapsed.

“There, that’s better,” the knight murmured, and then they were off again. It may’ve been Tonepheny’s imagination, but the horse’s gait seemed gentler now, almost preternaturally smooth. The rocking of her withers was hypnotic, and Tonepheny’s addled mind was sucked into the dip of left and right, left and right. Between one blink and the next, night fell, and Tonepheny realized he must have dozed off atop the horse. The knight was loosening the bindings around his thighs, and when the rope was neatly coiled and stowed in his saddle bags, the big human pulled him down, steadying him on his shaky knees.

“Over here,” the knight murmured, steering Tonepheny to a crook between two massive tree roots. “You just sit there. I have a stew from breakfast. I think that won’t be too rough on your stomach.” The knight stared down at the chain magically linked to his finger for a moment, before sighing and wrapping it around a low-hanging tree branch. “Sorry. I need my hands free.” The chain immediately stopped stretching, leaving only a hint of slack. Tonepheny stared at it hatefully for a moment, his neck, wrists, and ankles aching with the weight of its existence.

He watched the knight putter around the campsite, setting a fire and heating his little skin of stew, tending to the magnificent white horse, and seeing to his gear. When the stew was warm enough, he transferred it to a little tin bowl for Tonepheny and passed it over. “It’s not much, but I don’t want you getting sick all over yourself. If you can finish it without getting sick, and you’re still hungry, I can get you more.”

It smelled hearty, and though he wondered if it might be drugged, his hunger was more pressing. A cautious sip of the stuff warmed his whole chest, the tang of salt, the lingering savory flavor of meat broth—he hadn’t had even a hint of meat since before he was first captured. Only fish, and then nothing at all. He drank more and more, trying desperately not to go too fast, because in this the knight was right; he might very well become sick if he rushed himself. Across the way, the knight was eating the vegetables and meats he hadn’t permitted Tonepheny, as well as two biscuits of hardtack. His eyes were distant, though they flickered to Tonepheny from time to time. They seemed friendly. _He_ seemed friendly. Tonepheny hardly knew what to think.

The autumn chill of night deepened, and the knight produced a woolen blanket from his bags, which he draped over Tonepheny; then he stepped back, considering. “I’ve things to do. I hate to leave you here unguarded, but there’s not much of an alternative. I can’t take you with me. Libby will be here, though, and she’s as good as any human when it comes to thieves and bandits.” He smiled again, and then nodded decisively and disappeared into the dark, carrying one of his saddlebags.

Tonepheny was left alone, the fire crackling merrily, the horse, Libby he supposed, across from him. Now that they were alone, he studied her more closely, the silken feathering on her big hooves, the smooth lines of her back, the glittering sharpness of her eyes. She seemed to be watching him too, though she absently lipped at the scraggly grass from time to time. He realized, with a start, that she wasn’t hobbled or tied in any way. She was free to go, if she pleased, and almost before he thought of it, Tonepheny hissed at her, “Run. Run! You can go. You can get away. Go.”

Her ears flickered at him, and she swished her tail, as she would to swat away a gnat, before she snorted and bowed to her grasses once more. He laughed at himself, wondering why he’d thought she would listen. Though she seemed intelligent, she was an animal, not a Creature, and she couldn’t speak the tongues of either.

With only himself for company, Tonepheny’s thoughts faded into a haze of exhaustion and sickness; his body ached, and while his belly was full for the first time in three days, it hardly made a dent in the damage starvation had done him. Though he didn’t mean to, he nodded off, shivering under the woolen blanket.

He woke with a start to the sound of something heavy crashing through the brush, and immediately shrank down on himself. The fire was down to embers, but he could still see Libby across from him, and though her ears flicked to follow the sound, she seemed completely unafraid of whatever was fumbling its way toward them. A moment later, a man in black burst into the clearing, a huge bundle in his arms. He barreled right through and disappeared into the trees on the other side of the camp, his cloak flapping loudly behind him. “What was …” Tony started to murmur, only to be interrupted as a unicorn appeared a moment later, a sphinx right behind her. Both of them were moving more sedately than the man in black, and they stopped at the fire, studying him closely. He realized with a shock that these were the unicorn and sphinx from Tiberius’ wretched show.

“You … you’re free,” he murmured, looking at them wonderingly. The sphinx, Nefertari, had been as poorly treated as he, but the unicorn, Mainesthai, was in better shape, her coat relatively clean, her belly mostly full. Tiberius had been afraid of her, afraid of the rumors that unicorns could curse those who hurt them. The sphinx approached him first, circling him and butting her head against his chest in warm greeting.

“We said we would try to help you. Before we go home.”

“Help me?”

“Your chains. The spell.” She head-butted him again and then looked down at his chains, inspecting them with gimlet green eyes. “Be very still,” she murmured, and then she breathed on the metal, silver mist pouring from between her lips. Tonepheny held his breath, watching the fog creep up the metal. Symbols sparkled along the chain glowed briefly, before fading again, and the shackles on his neck, wrists, and ankles felt no different. The sphinx frowned, pawing at the metal for a moment, and then backed away.

In her stead, the unicorn stepped forward and touched her pearlescent horn to the metal. The symbols flared brighter, and the metal seemed to shudder, but it did not shatter and the cuffs did not open. The unicorn flipped her mane and bowed her head again, touching her horn to the metal for several more breaths. The symbols wriggled across the metal like live worms, flaring brightly in the near dark of the woods, but still nothing happened. She snorted, her breath blowing warm and fragrant over Tonepheny’s arms, and stamped her hoof in irritation. Finally, she bowed her head a third time, and this time, something did happen. The chain began to shrink, as did the shackles. Where before, they had been heavy, pinching and digging at him, now they too became chains, all of them as fine as a woman’s necklace, and though they still bound him, they now stretched easily; for the first time in an age, he could stretch his arms and legs wide, but he could barely raise them, still weak as a kitten. The slack of the line between himself and the tree limb, remained the same as ever, though.

The unicorn’s irritation was plain writ on her face, and at last she touched her horn to his forehead. _I’m sorry I can’t do more. This human magic is different. I don’t know how to make it break._

“That’s okay. You helped,” Tonepheny murmured, showing her his wrist, still bloody, horrid to look at, but now free of the oppressive weight. The chain was loose, and though it refused to slide over his hand, he could move it nearly to his elbow. The cold night air on his wounds was both a balm and a sting, and Nefertari very gently touched them with the tuft of her tail, some sort of little blessing, perhaps.

“We must go,” she told him, “but we’ll stay until the Fair One returns.”

“Fair One?”

“The one who freed us. Did you think we broke out of those magical cages on our own?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I didn’t think at all.”

“He came all dressed in black, and he locked Tiberius in the siren’s cage, made him wear the siren’s muzzle. I wanted to eat him, but the Fair One wouldn’t let me.”

Tonepheny thought to the figure who’d crashed through the forest, some huge bundle in his arms. Was that their rescuer? He must have been. And was he also the knight who’d bought Tonepheny? Nefertari said he was returning here, so he must be.

“Why did he free you?”

“He didn’t say. He worked quickly. We helped. He seems nice. For a human.”

Such scant detail. Tonepheny supposed he ought to be grateful she was telling him as much as she was; it was not in her nature to divulge knowledge freely, and her clipped answers hardly painted a better picture. When it became clear he planned to ask no more questions, she curled around him, her huge lion’s body providing reprieve from the night’s chill. Mainesthai stood watch over them both, her horn glowing softly in the darkness, her hooves picking delicately at the fallen leaves on the forest floor.

Some time later, though not much, there was rustling in the forest and a figure emerged from the darkness, cloaked in black. He wore a mask and a loose billowing, black shirt, his heavy cloak and tightly fitted breeches, and a good pair of black boots. He glanced over at them—Tonepheny caught the flash of his eyes—and then moved over to Libby, who greeted him with a friendly lip to the shoulder. His captor and master, then. And apparently the liberator of Tiberius’ entire fair.

Nefertari roused herself and moved to stand in front of Tonepheny, her tail switching from side to side. Every line of her body painted the anticipatory hunter, watchful and ready to spring at a moment’s notice.

“I know it’s the middle of the night,” he said, arranging his saddlebags, “but I’m afraid we have to move. Those guards of his will break out by morning, and I’d rather not be here when they do.” He tightened the saddle girth before turning to Tonepheny, putting hands on hips and studying the lot of them standing there. He looked like a mother brooding over her nestlings, and for a bizarre moment, Tonepheny wanted to laugh madly. “Is he sick? I didn’t think you’d still be here.”

“He is weak,” Nefertari answered, her tail flicking faster. “And we were unable to break the locks.”

The knight slid his mask from his face, sending his hair into tousled disarray, and stared at them; Tonepheny could only just see him between Nerfertari and Maenesthai, standing guard over him.

“I thought … Well, humans think a lot of dumb things about Creatures, though.”

“Not all of them wrong. Normally a unicorn can open any lock. Normally my charms work. But this lock is special. Strange. It resisted us. We changed it, but it lingers.”

“Changed it?”

“You will see.”

The human frowned at them all, hands still on hips, and stared down at the ground. “Oh. Huh. Well, thank you for trying. I’ll … think of something.” Nefertari rose and circled both him and the horse, though Libby didn’t bat an eye at her predatory approach.

“There is a witch. A red witch. You know her?”

“I’ve heard of her.”

“Find her. She will help.” Nefertari gave him one last flick of her tail, circled back to Tonepheny, and headbutted him. “This is farewell, little harpy. Clear skies to you.”

“Good hunting to you,” he returned, and hated how a knot formed in his throat, hated that he would miss her. They’d barely talked, caged as they’d been, barely known of each other’s existence save when Tiberius paraded them out to the big tent, but she had been kind to him. The unicorn touched him one last time with her beautiful horn, and then she too turned away, and both of them disappeared into the forest. Tonepheny was again alone with the human.

He looked at Tonepheny, his expression hidden by the dark of night and the shadow of the forest. “Well,” he said finally, “not the outcome I’d hoped for, but still better than it could’ve been. Let’s get going.” He approached and inspected the chain, now so delicate, glittering silver in the faint light. Experimentally, he tugged to see if it might break, but it held fast to itself and to Tonepheny and after a few more futile tries, he gave up and snapped it away from the tree branch, sighing as it stuck fast to his forefinger.

“It’s not you I’m irritated with,” the knight said, bending to help Tonepheny to his feet. “I just don’t like having one hand occupied. It’s dangerous on the road. I suppose I shouldn’t complain. You’ve had to put up with this wretched thing for far longer.” He helped Tonepheny into the saddle and bound his legs to Libby again, easing him onto her neck. Another drink of water, as much as Tonepheny could easily take, and they were off.

In the deeper dark of the woods, the knight doffed his cloak, stripped off his billowing black shirt, and folded both neatly into one of the saddle bags. He glowed in the darkness, his pale skin almost as bright as the white hide of his horse, and even in the faint light, Tonepheny realized that this was no fat, soft hedgeknight. What his clothing and armor had hidden earlier in the day were thick bulges of muscle, a body carved more like marble than flesh. Perhaps this man had been one of the warriors he’d heard the villagers gossiping about in the various towns, a man who helped overthrow the monarchy and install the new king. Such matters hardly touched Creatures anymore, consigned as they were to non-personhood, but Tonepheny couldn’t help what he overheard.

The knight shrugged on a plain white shirt, a blue tabard, and his scale mail, but his plain brown cloak he draped over Tonepheny’s shoulders. “It seems we’ll be traveling together for a while. I’m Steve.” He turned expectantly to Tonepheny, and for a moment his teeth flashed white in the dark.

“Tiberius called me Tonathak.”

“Do you want me to call you that?”

Tonepheny shuddered. He hated that name. He hated that Tiberius had stolen everything from him, even his identity. But he didn’t just want to hand it over to this human, this stupid knight who had bought his life with a few pieces of gold.

“Call me Tony,” he murmured, turning his face into the horse’s mane. As though she sensed his reluctance, Libby trotted ahead of the knight, and it was only then that Tonepheny realized Steve did not hold her lead. He waited for Steve to run up and slow her, but he didn’t; he let her do as she pleased, and when Tonepheny chanced a glance back, he could just catch Steve’s easy expression in the dark. He didn’t seem angry or worried. In fact, he started to whistle a jaunty tune as he walked, following his horse as she led the way into the woods.

“Crazy human,” Tonepheny murmured, and he turned back into Libby, giving himself over to exhaustion and sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

Tonepheny woke when Libby came to a halt and almost immediately missed the gentle rocking of her withers. The sun was nearing the noonday zenith, and Tonepheny guessed he’d slept many hours, longer than he’d slept in he couldn’t remember how long. The chain that passed from his wrist to Steve stretched and contracted easily, producing only the lightest of pressures on his skin; Steve clearly had no desire to make him stay close and Tonepheny peered out through his eyelashes to see what he might be doing.

Steve was rummaging through one of the packs, right at Tonepheny’s hip, whistling as though he’d never stopped through the entire night. He glanced up, caught Tonepheny’s eyes, and grinned.

“Good morning. Or rather, good day. I’m glad you got so much sleep. You must be hungry, though. Just give me a minute and I’ll get that rope so you can get down.” He bustled a moment more, extracting a small bundle, and then gently undid the rope that had kept Tonepheny from taking another tumble to the ground. “Do you think you can dismount by yourself today?”

Tonepheny considered the liquid sluggishness of his limbs and then embarrassedly shook his head. Steve’s arms were gentle as he slipped them around Tonepheny waist without comment, taking his weight and depositing him safely on the ground.

“Now, are you hungry? I’ll have to make a new stew, but we’re close the river, so I can probably get us some fish. We should be passing near a village tomorrow, and we can get better supplies then, but in the meantime, I’m afraid its road fare.” He smiled so easily, so openly, and it infuriated Tonepheny. Why was he being so kind? To what end? Couldn’t he just be cruel from the start and spare Tonepheny the pain of dashed hopes?

When no answer came, Steve shrugged and helped Tonepheny out to a comfortable seat under a gnarled tree, where he hooked the chain around another low-hanging branch, muttering a small apology before he turned away. The forest was thickening a bit, but all the trees still looked small and weak, twisted with the aridity of the western edge of the kingdom. The river was visible just in front of him, its waters flashing sharply in the dazzling autumn light. It was not so hot as it had been the day before, and in the shade, it was almost pleasant.

Steve wasted no time in starting a small fire and setting a kettle to boil, and with a sharpened stick, he’d speared three fish before Tonepheny could even blink. A fine knight indeed, in his prime and clearly skilled. But confusing. Knights. Tonepheny knew little of them, only that they served a lord and longed to be lords themselves. In the service of their lords, they’d slaughtered the harpies and driven them to the craggy north where no humans could dwell. In the service of their lords, they’d lopped off mages' hands and poisoned apothecaries, slit unicorn throats and cut out dragon hearts. Knights were not to be trusted.

Yet this one, in little more than an hour, had a barley and fish stew burbling in his little cooking pot and was now watching Tonepheny with a sharp assessing glance which he had not used last night.

“Your wounds need seeing to,” he said at last, pointing to where Tonepheny wrists had crusted into a horrible, painful mess. “I’d like to put some medicine on them, if that’s all right with you.”

Tonepheny glared at him, hunching further in on himself. If he’d had his wings, he would’ve folded them down until he was hidden entirely, but instead, his plucked wing stumps only wriggled with anxiety, uselessly beating against his shoulders.

“Tony?”

“I can’t stop you,” he murmured, hanging his head. His body was not his own. His life was not his own. Nefertari and Maenesthai had walked free, but Tonepheny would be bound to this human until he died or was sold, and if a unicorn could not break the magical chains, he knew of no escape. Whatever red witch they were walking toward was probably nothing more than a rumor and a sad old woman; witches had been driven from the kingdom the same as Creatures and he doubted they had returned.

“No,” Steve said slowly, “but all the same. I’d like your permission.”

“Why?”

“Because …” Steve looked at a loss, his brow crinkling into a frown, his lips pursed. “Because no one should touch you without permission. It’s not right.”

“I’m a slave. Your property. You bought me.”

“To save your life. That charlatan would’ve killed you in front of all those people, just because you were sick. It’s not right,” he insisted. There was something about his tone of voice, the conviction of his eyes, that made Tonepheny want to trust him. All the more dangerous. Humans were betrayers, and Steve would prove no different.

But his wrists did hurt, and the infection in them burned hot and angry. “Fine then,” he said, unable to look any longer. He turned his gaze on the blinding water, letting the sun’s reflection paint spots on his eyes. Steve approached audibly, and Tonepheny flinched away, waiting for some sign that pain was approaching, but it never came. Instead, Steve crouched in front of him, a small tin in hand. He opened it and the scent of strong herbs wafted through the air, making Tonepheny want to sneeze.

Steve removed his leather gloves and carefully ran two fingers through the cream in the tin, applying generous dabs to Tonepheny’s neck, each of his wrists, and each of his ankles. It seemed strange that such a large man could be so gentle, that his hands could apply the medicine without causing Tonepheny even greater hurt. “Try not to disturb it for a bit,” he said when he was finished, looking Tonepheny over with a critical eye. “It works better the longer it’s left on.” He stood, but then stopped, and Tonepheny knew what he was looking at—the pocked, raw pink skin of his wing stumps, the places where scabs had formed with abuse.

“Do … Should I put it there, too?”

“Don’t touch them,” Tonepheny snapped, and Steve immediately backed away, his hands up to demonstrate his lack of intent. Ashamed of both his wings and himself, Tonepheny shrank in, looking away before Steve could see his anger, his vulnerability. Foolish, really. He was bound hand and foot. It would take an idiot not to see that Tonepheny was vulnerable.

He nearly jolted out of skin when he felt something at his shoulder and flinched away until he realized it was Libby. She had snuck up on his side and now lipped at his skin, as if to sooth his ruffled feathers.

“She likes you,” Steve said, stashing the cream and returning to his stew. He ladled two portions into small bowls, and poured the rest into the leather skin he’d warmed by the fire last night.

Tonepheny didn’t bother to answer, though he did lean toward the horse. Animals didn’t betray, and in her own way, she was a captive like Tonepheny. Or … No. Maybe not. She still wasn’t tied up, nor were her legs hobbled. She seemed free to come and go as she pleased, but still she stayed with Steve. Maybe she knew no better. Maybe she didn’t know what it was to run free on an open plain with horse brothers and sisters. The thought hurt Tonepheny’s heart, and after a moment, he reached up to gently touch her soft muzzle.

When next he looked back at Steve, he discovered that the bowl of stew had been left next to him, though Tonepheny hadn’t heard Steve move at all; he’d been completely silent, and the thought unnerved Tonepheny. Dangerous. This human is dangerous, he reminded himself.

They ate in silence, and Tonepheny was grudgingly pleased by the stew; he’d grown up on the coast, fishing in the offing, and though freshwater fish wasn’t the same, it still tasted close enough that it reminded him of home. What had once been home, before his capture.

Stew finished, he glanced back up at Steve and discovered that he was asleep. As far as Tonepheny could tell, Steve had been awake all of yesterday, all of last night, and all of today as well. If it weren’t for the chains, Tonepheny could escape right this moment, and for a moment, with a full belly and wounds eased by medicine, hope flared within him. He tugged experimentally at the chain, but thin though it was, it did not break; it only stretched and stretched until his arms were as wide as they could go. Next, he tried slipping the bonds on his wrist, but it was as though the struck a magical barrier at his knuckles, and they would slide down no further. The tree branch he was tied to seemed flimsy, so Tonepheny tried break it off chain and all, but no matter how he pulled at it, it sprang back into place, unaltered.

Before, in his former life, Tonepheny had been a blacksmith for his people. It had been his single greatest gift. With only a forge, a hammer, and his mind, he’d been able to shape the most fantastic works of metal. If he had a hammer now, he could surely break himself free. The whole of the time he’d been with Tiberius, he’d been waiting for his chance. With even just one tool, he’d find a way to escape. So he told himself. But without them, he was helpless.

Still, he scanned the campsite, searching for something in reaching distance of his tether. Even a small knife would be better than nothing, though Tonepheny didn’t know where he would hide it. The only thing in easy reach was the heavy, small pot Steve had used for cooking, but that would be missed instantly and taken from him. Tonepheny frowned and settled, wondering why he’d allowed himself even that small sliver of hope. Hadn’t his time with Tiberius taught him? Hope was foolish.

He slumped down, and before he knew it, he was being shaken awake again, Steve looming over him. Tonepheny shrank away, waiting for the blow, but it never came. He glanced between his fingers and found that Steve had backed away, that he held up his hands with that same damnable look. Tonepheny didn’t know what to make of this human, didn’t know how to understand him.

“The heat of the day has passed. We should get moving. I still don’t know if that man will come after us, but I stole most of his gold, so he just might.”

“You what?”

“When I freed the other Creatures, I helped myself to his coffers. He took almost everything I had when I bought you, and it’s a tough go on the road with no money.”

Tonepheny gaped, caught between amusement that Tiberius had been so thoroughly swindled and shock that Tonepheny had apparently landed himself with another highway crook. Just how had Steve done it? Tiberius kept his wares well-guarded, with nearly twenty men on his payroll, and the cages were spelled on top of that, both to keep the Creatures from escaping and to keep anyone from stealing them.

“Why did you help us? Them? Why did you free them all?”

Steve glanced up from where he was gathering his supplies into his packs. “Because the king’s men don’t have the power to right now.”

“Why would the king give a damn about a bunch of scrawny Creatures? He never did before.”

“The new king does.”

Blinding hot rage stole across Tonepheny’s eyes, and for a moment, he pulled at his bonds, relishing the way the metal cut into his skin as he strained against the tree’s hold. It was stupid, madness, to talk back to the man who controlled his fate, but Tonepheny hated being lied to, especially when he’d been betrayed by humans so many times before. “Bullshit,” he hissed, his feathers raising up high, cresting with his rage. “How long has the new king sat his throne? Three seasons? Four? And still we were rotting in our filth. If the new king cares about us, he has a funny way of showing it.”

“He does,” Steve insisted, and part of Tonepheny now cowered because soon Steve would come over and reveal that he wasn’t so kind and benevolent, that he wouldn’t tolerate insubordinations. “When he ascended the throne, he reinstated the citizenship of all Creatures. He undid the bans on magic and potion work. What Tiberius was doing was illegal.”

“Well no one stopped him!”

“Well, that’s …” Steve paused, deflating a little. He wasn’t looking at Tonepheny, but his shoulders rounded in on themselves, and his hands busied at Libby’s saddle, securing it. “It’s difficult. At the end of the day, kings are only men. They can pass decrees, but it takes forces to enforce those decrees, and the kingdom runs thin on good soldiers. Those we do have are massed on the Latverian border right now, ensuring that King Doom doesn’t invade while we’re weak. That’s why men like Tiberius still thrive in the west, and even near the Capitol.”

“Men like Tiberius,” Tonepheny scoffed. “Men like you.”

Steve stiffened, and now it would come; Tonepheny was sure that the blows would rain down on him any minute now. But Steve didn’t rush him or attack him. He only patted Libby before disappearing into the forest without a word. Libby watched him go for a moment before snorting and rounding on Tonepheny, and in any Creature, Tonepheny would’ve guessed that she was incensed with him. Maybe Steve would just leave him in the forest to starve; it would be easier than accompanying this temperamental master on a road leading the gods knew where.

But five minutes later, Steve returned, and while his expression was as still as stone, his hands as he undid the chain were gentle, and he handed Tonepheny up onto Libby like he was handling delicate, spun glass. He left his legs unbound today, and Tonepheny became preoccupied with keeping his seat. He’d never had need of a horse before, and without the security of a rope to keep him astride, he didn’t quite understand how to use his legs and hands to keep himself balanced properly. His talons were too large to fit in the stirrups, and so his feet dangled awkwardly, held away from Libby’s sides to keep from scratching her with his stubby claws. She did not make his job any easier; her gait seemed somehow sharper and more uneven than it had earlier, and it was all Tonepheny could do to remain upright.

One hour’s painful ride later, Steve seemed to notice how much Tonepheny was slipping and sliding in the saddle and leaned into Libby, whispering something up at her ear. She snorted at him and threw a look back at Tonepheny before her gait suddenly smoothed into an easy ride. Steve shot a small smile back at him before moving ahead again, the chain stretching between them and gently beating against Libby’s neck.

Tonepheny spent the rest of the evening feeling strangely uneasy and ashamed, like he’d committed some sort of social faux pas without even realizing.

By the time they settled to camp for the night, the autumn chill biting deeply into the landscape around them, Steve’s tension seemed to have disappeared, and he was again smiling and warm as he helped Tonepheny down from the saddle. “Would you be up to trying a little walking tonight?” he asked, his hand still carefully supporting Tonepheny.

With a few days of regular food and water, as well as medicine on his wounds, Tonepheny was feeling more and more himself, though his wings ached with every movement of his shoulders. Steve’s offer seemed like a sound idea, so Tonepheny nodded, concentrating on his legs as Steve gave him a little space to try walking on his own. His thighs ached from the saddle, but even so, he was able to take a few hobbling steps. Steve was right there at his side, his hands hovering and ready to catch Tonepheny, but that made him want even more to do it on his own. He made one full circuit of the campsite before his limbs failed him, and he toppled forward. Steve had him in an instant, hands on his arms, steadying him. They were so near that Tonepheny could make out the stubble on his chin, the fine blonde eyelashes of his eyes, the faint, little freckles that dotted his nose. Tonepheny blinked and shoved himself away, falling back onto his tail feathers. “That’s enough for tonight,” he said hastily, and scooted toward the fire pit, where he knocked the flints together to try and spark a fire. It was mortifying to hear Steve chuckle, and then crouch beside him, arranging the kindling to better catch sparks.

When the fire was crackling merrily, Steve set their stew to reheat and took his seat across from Tonepheny. He was watching again, his blue eyes sharp in the orange glow of their hearth. “The red witch is supposed to live somewhere near here. Just north of the next village. We’ll see her about breaking the chain, and then you’re free to go. Um …” His eyes were on Tonepheny’s wing stumps and he could only imagine what Steve saw: a pathetic, skinny, flea-eaten Creature who couldn’t even escape from one measly human.

“Go on and say it,” he dared, poking a stick into the flames.

Steve smiled kindly at him. “Well, maybe she can help with your wings, too.”

Somehow, to have it spoken out loud hurt Tonepheny even more, and he tucked himself into the woolen blanket tightly, looking away into the darkness. Freedom. Laughable. As if Steve really planned to free him anyway. He must have some ulterior motive for what he was doing, some reason for freeing all those other Creatures from Tiberius. It didn’t matter if Tonepheny hadn’t figured out his angle yet; there certainly was one. Wary again, he tipped over on his side and curled up for the night, still staring out into the darkness. At the last, he thought he caught Steve’s eyes, soft and blue and sad.

 

* * *

 

 

They came on the village in the middle of the morning, cloaked against the light drizzle that had started falling just after dawn. Tonepheny’s legs screamed with pain from two days in the saddle, and he was thrilled at the prospect of getting down for a slow walk, even if it was among a gaggle of humans. But when they approached the gate, the two skinny guards crossed their spears.

“Those monsters aren’t allowed in the village,” one snapped at Steve, pointing imperiously at Tonepheny.

“He’s my traveling companion. And he’s a citizen of Aspis. He has every right to enter your village.”

“He’s a beast and a cur and he’ll eat our children.”

Hunched in the saddle, cloak pulled low over his eyes, Tonepheny vacillated between shame and rage. When he’d been young, barely a fledgling, trips to human villages had been a treat. They valued Creature goods for their magical properties, and often considered small gifts like feathers and hair a great blessing, using them in potions or selling them to apothecaries for a small sum. Back then, a village like this would’ve welcomed him with open arms. But now, all they saw was a beast, something as low and hateful as a snake or a thieving coyote.

“I’m a knight of this realm. You’ll let me pass.”

“You, sure. But not that thing.”

“Hey,” said the quiet guard, poking his companion with the butt of his spear, “it’s in chains.”

“What?” The guard inspected more closely, squinting at Tonepheny ankles and the chain that stretched from him to Steve. “Huh. It is. Sure it’s not just jewelry?”

“Dunno. Why don’t we make it dance and find out?”

Steve stepped more fully in front of Libby, who herself was now stamping and switching her wet tail in irritation. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll be on our way.”

“Tail tapper,” one of the guards muttered, and Steve’s shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t respond or try to start a fight. He just wandered off along the perimeter wall of the town, Libby following behind. They circled the town and veered into the woods to the northeast, where the sopping autumn foliage offered only a scant amount of protection. Steve’s face was hooded, and Tonepheny couldn’t begin to guess what he might be feeling about his treatment at the hands of the guards. Even hedge knights were generally treated with careful deference—there was no way of knowing who they might be friends with—so Tonepheny wondered if Steve had ever been insulted so since he first donned his sword and shield. He stretched the chain out a good twenty feet, tied it about a tree limb and waited, staring at it as if to make sure it wouldn’t shrink and bind Tonepheny close to the bark.

“I’m going to the village for supplies. I’ll go through the north gate, so the guards won’t ... I’m sorry to leave you here. I’d thought the inn … Anyway. I’ll be back quick as I can. With stew and bread.” His tone was equally indiscernible, and Tonepheny frowned after him, even more confused. He carefully dismounted from Libby, wincing as his wobbly legs hit the ground, but standing on his own two feet felt amazing, especially after a few days of having to rely on Steve’s shoulder for stability. He could only manage a kind of limping shuffle, but it was enough to get him to a bush to relieve himself and then take a slow circle of the little sheltered part of the woods Steve had chosen. Everything smelled wet and sour, the forest mast rotting with its new coating of dead autumn leaves and rainwater.

There wasn’t much for Libby to graze at, so she watched Tonepheny with her too-bright eyes, her huge eyelashes studded with rain drops. “You’re like no horse I’ve ever known,” Tonepheny told her, making another circuit on his chain. “He doesn’t tie you up or hobble you or even ride you, it seems like. Why stay with him? Is it the food? Does he give you nice oats?”

She snorted at him, her ears switching back and forth. Tonepheny was again struck by the thought that she seemed more intelligent than any horse had a right to be, but then, he hadn’t known that many horses in his lifetime. The harpies had no need of them, and Tiberius had had only one knobby mare on his lines, the rest of the carnival being pulled by oxen and donkeys. Maybe horses owned by knights were all like this, but when he met her liquid eyes again, Tonepheny felt judged and anxious.

By his third circuit, his legs were quivering like a jellyfish, so he settled against a tree, luxuriating in the feeling of stretching and clenching his talons. Alone, without Steve’s watchful gaze, Tonepheny at last dared to look at his wing stumps, what he could manage to see of them anyway. The skin was badly scarred at the point of amputation and also where Tiberius and his lackeys had put knives to his feathers. However, in haphazard spots, quills were beginning to press back through. They felt thin and weak, and no doubt his poor diet had made all his feathers more brittle than they ought to be. It didn’t matter, though. He’d never fly again, even if some of his feathers grew back in. He couldn’t regrow bone, and the chronic pain in his stumps was only another reminder of what he’d lost.

Steve was back in almost no time at all, bearing a large bundle under one arm and looking perturbed. Without a word, he handed Tonepheny a skin of soup and an oiled cloak, one which would keep out the damp better than the brown wool one he wore now. Rolled inside the cloak was a shirt, and Tonepheny stared at it curiously. His people did not need clothing, roosting on the warm, southeastern shores of Aspis as they had, but he could see the sense of it, now that he and Steve were heading north, and winter was closing in. Tiberius had never bothered to offer the Creatures warm clothing, but he had traveled south in the winter, so it had never been much of an issue.

When Tonepheny unfurled the shirt, he discovered that the back had been partially cut away, such that it would not cover his stumps or impede them. He looked up with surprise, but Steve was seated on a log under another tree, his face distant and set in craggy lines. Perhaps something had happened in the village and it was troubling him, but Tonepheny was not about to ask. He pulled on the shirt, shivering at the unfamiliar feeling of fabric so close to his skin, and then put the oilcloth cape around his shoulders over the woolen one. The stew was made with some sort of game meat, and between its steaming warmth and the layers of fabric, Tonepheny began to feel truly warm.

After their meal, Steve sighed gustily and looked at Tonepheny with a crooked smile. “Well, we have two options. We can push on and try to reach the red witch tonight, or we can stay right here and set out tomorrow when the rain will have hopefully passed.”

By his expression, Tonepheny guessed that Steve preferred the former choice, and he was inclined to agree. They were close to the village, and given the way the guards had regarded them, it didn’t seem safe to stay. In answer, he slowly wobbled to his feet, shuffling toward Libby. Steve’s half-smile grew into a softer, more genuine thing, and he unhooked the chain from its tree branch, helping Tonepheny up into the saddle. They set out north, veering back onto the road where the gravel gave better footing than the wet sucking mud and refuse of the forest, and Tonepheny found himself staring down at the hooded back of Steve’s head.

“Did something happen in the village?” he asked, immediately regretting it. No master wanted to make small talk with his slave.

“Oh, nothing to trouble yourself with. I guess word of a knight traveling with a harpy spreads fast in such a small town. They were … well, it doesn’t matter. I got what we needed. Did you like the stew?” He looked back at Tonepheny, a boyish smile spread across his face.

Tonepheny felt compelled to answer. “Everything you’ve given me has been wonderful. I can’t remember the last time it wasn’t barley gruel. It’s … And thank you. For the cloak and the shirt. You didn’t have to.”

“I didn’t want you to be cold,” Steve said simply, and Tonepheny felt his face wrinkle into a frown against his better judgment. Steve watched him curiously, that sharp attention he’d shown before, and Tonepheny felt weighed and measured, like some kind of puzzle. He didn’t like that feeling, at least not from a human. As a distraction, he stumbled on, his mouth tripping ahead of his brain.

“Libby seems like an amazing horse.”

“She is,” Steve smiled, patting Libby on the neck. Her ears flicked back and forth, and Tonepheny almost got the distinct sense that she was preening, her gait becoming a little more like a show trot for a moment. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“You’ve had her a long time?”

“Oh, four years now. She’s six, though. She was a gift from … from a friend.” He laughed a little self-deprecatingly. “Saying gift makes her sound like she’s a piece of jewelry or something. I should say a friend let us meet, and she chose me.”

“’Chose you?’”

“You might’ve noticed, but Libby’s … particular.” The way Steve said “particular” made Tonepheny think he meant something else entirely. “She doesn’t let just anyone ride her.” Again, Tonepheny had the sense that Libby was listening intently, that she had opinions about what was being said. As if to confirm his suspicions, she suddenly bowed her head down to lip fondly at Steve’s shoulder.

His mouth still running away from him, Tonepheny said, “She seems more like a Creature than an animal.”

Steve glanced back sharply, his gaze assessing, and Tonepheny felt even more uncomfortable, his crest rising for a moment with something that was between thrill and fear. Perhaps this would be the moment when he’d be shown his place. But then Steve looked away and said, “I’m going to scout ahead. The red witch’s home is said to be guarded by enchantments and tricks, and I want to make sure we don’t get fooled or hurt. Libby will know the way.” Without another word, he looped the enchanted chain around Libby’s pommel and trotted further up the path, disappearing into the gathering gloom of the rainy night. Tonepheny, baffled, watched his shadow disappear into the mist and then looked down to find Libby giving him an accusatory stare.

“What did I say?” he asked, looking back up the road. Any answer she had for him was expressed only in her perturbed snort.

They trotted into the gathering gloom themselves, and Tonepheny gathered his cloak tight around him, desperately hoping they came upon no other travelers. He was defenseless, and chained, and it would be all too easy to be attacked, taken hostage, or simply killed. The rain was intensifying, though, and they met no one else. Libby’s mane was stuck to her neck, and Tonepheny felt bad that she had no covering of her own, but she didn’t seem to mind, following an unwavering path, pace unflagging.

Full night came early with the weather, and without moonlight or starlight, even Tonepheny sharp harpy eyes could barely see the road in front of them. Sensible animals, Creatures, and people were long holed up for the night, keeping warm and safe, but still they carried on, and at length, Tonepheny fell into a doze against Libby’s neck, though he wasn’t truly asleep. When next he opened his eyes though, Steve had reappeared, and Tonepheny had never heard him approach. He was at Libby’s side, a black ghost in a black forest, and for a fearful moment, Tonepheny wondered if it wasn’t Steve at all, but rather a wraith. When his wrist chains jangled with his movement, though, Steve glanced back and gave him a little encouraging smile. “Not far. She’s opened the way for us.”

“Do you mean to say you actually found her?” Tonepheny couldn’t hide his incredulity. He’d been so sure it was only some hamlet rumor meant to scare children into beds; witches simply did not live in Aspis anymore.

“I did, though she wasn’t very keen on being found. I had to explain our situation to three different rowan trees before I found the right one.”

“Rowan trees,” Tonepheny murmured, confused. What did trees have to do with anything?

“Don’t worry about it, Tony.” He’d nearly forgotten that he’d given Steve a false name; it sounded strange in the air between them, wrong and right at the same time. Tonepheny bit his tongue on more questions and glared quietly at Steve’s mysterious smile.

Above them, lightning flickered ominously, though its thunder was distant and strangely comforting. It reminded Tonepheny of storms at sea, of sitting in warm eyries with his friends and watching the violent waves roll up against the crags. A good omen then, or a bad one? He’d find out soon enough, for Steve veered off the forest road and into a copse of trees. Tonepheny couldn’t make out what marked this particular spot as the one that would lead them to the witch, but Steve walked confidently, never pausing, never wavering on his course. His confidence was enviable.

All of a sudden from the gloom there appeared a glowing cottage, its windows welcomingly orange in the dark rain. Tonepheny didn’t understand how he could have missed it, but it drove home at last that perhaps this woman truly was a witch, though all the witches had long been driven away. Was that why she was so carefully hidden? But then how had Nefertari known of her? A streak of jealousy for sphinxes and their secret ways burned through him for a moment, but it was replaced by hope. Perhaps she could break the chain, or if she could not, perhaps she had the tools by which he might do it himself. If he could only get a good chisel in hand …

His eagerness seemed to infect Libby, and she trotted faster, nearly on top of Steve before he put up a steadying hand to quiet her. The door of the cottage swung open, and in it stood a woman of perhaps twenty-five years or perhaps more. Her face seemed to shift in the shadows so that Tonepheny could never quite get a perfect impression of her actual image. Her auburn hair fell in a cloud around her shoulders, and within it sparkled a red headpiece, the glinting beads and stones of it draped in chains down her cheekbones. She was dressed simply in a red gown and a red shawl, and she held her arms open in welcome.

“Come in, come in. Out of the rain.”

Steve helped Tonepheny down and led him to the door before backing away. “Where are you—“

“I have to take care of Libby. I’ll be in in a minute.”

Tonepheny watched with something like unease as Steve urged Libby around the edge of the cottage, where there must have been a small lean-to or manger or something under which she could hide from the wet. He didn’t trust Steve, but he also didn’t trust magic; it was what had bound him in the first place, and his crest stood on end in the threshold of the witch’s cottage, warning him that he was in unfamiliar territory. But he couldn’t think of what else to do, especially when he realized that the witch held his chain somehow, that it did not stretch to follow Steve.

“You …” he didn’t know how to phrase what he wanted to say, and ended up standing abashed, trying to look at her face, but failing.

“Come in,” she said again, and her smile was warm, but somehow it made his stomach roil. He acquiesced and stepped inside, dripping wetly on her smooth wooden floors. She doffed his cloaks for him, and he watched with growing trepidation as she blew gently on each before returning them, dry as bones and pleasantly warm. No back-alley witch spinning watered down potions and backfiring hexes then; she was the real deal, the kind of witch Tonepheny hadn’t seen since the king’s purge. He draped his cloaks over his arm and followed her deeper into her home, sitting on the cushions she offered him, staring with what he was sure was abject rudeness. He couldn’t look away, though.

She bustled about, pushing a kettle of water over the fire, readying a teapot, pulling bread, cheese, hard meats, fruits and vegetables from her larder. She had bright red tomatoes, though they were long out of season, and grapes that looked as succulent and perfect as pearls. She set it all out on a polished wooden board with a tiny pronged, silver instrument. He watched carefully as she speared one of her sausage slices and ate it happily, her red-stained lips curling into a pleased smile.

“Please, eat. You must be hungry.”

Could it be poisoned or enchanted? And if it was, how could Tonepheny politely refuse? She had offered him shelter, and with the fire burning at the center of her little cottage, he was already tingling with warmth. He supposed if he was to die tonight, he might as well die with a full stomach. The first taste of cheese exploded on his tongue, salty, earthy, pungent but not overpowering. He was embarrassed by how quickly he ate four more slices, and tried to slow himself thereafter, though the witch’s knowing smile told him he wasn’t succeeding. They ate in companionable silence for a pleasant while until Steve returned, equally dripping. The witch rose and went to him, taking his cloak and drying it as she had Tonepheny’s. When she’d set it aside, though, she took Steve by his arms and kissed each of his cheeks. “It’s wonderful to see you again. It’s been so long. I was sorry to hear about Lord Erskine.”

Steve’s face clouded over, but he returned the kisses, his own palms on the witch’s waist. “I’m sorry you couldn’t be at his funeral. But I’m glad you stayed away. It was … not a welcoming crowd.”

“I imagine,” the witch said wryly, stepping back from Steve. “Come. You must be hungry.” She led him to another mound of cushions around the fire and fussed until he had his own share of food, nearly as large as the board that Tonepheny was sharing with the witch. Steve smiled happily as he dug in, and it was strange to see a man eat so voraciously and yet so daintily.

“I suppose I should introduce you,” he said between bites, looking up between the witch and Tonepheny with a hint of bashfulness. “Wanda, this is Tony. Tony, this is Wanda Maximoff.”

“You might’ve mentioned you knew each other,” Tony groused, though there wasn’t much heat behind it. He was growing fuller by the moment, and it was difficult to be irate when so well-fed.

“Steven! You didn’t tell him? No wonder he looked so frightened.” She smacked Steve with her little silver instrument, and he held up a hand to defend himself, blushing red in the firelight.

“I was not frightened,” Tonepheny protested, though he could tell neither of them was paying much attention to him as they got into their little food fight. They seemed so comfortable with each other, and Tonepheny wondered if they might’ve once been lovers. The thought made something wriggle uncomfortably within him and he stabbed at a grape more vigorously than was perhaps necessary. Across the fire, Steve and Wanda eventually settled into a comfortable meal, and once the water had boiled, there was tea as well. It tasted sharp and herbal, and Tonepheny could almost feel it flowing through his veins. The way Wanda’s eyes sparkled, he suspected it was not just in his imagination.

When they could eat no more, Steve cleared away the food, waving his hand at Wanda’s protests and moving comfortably in her space, as though he’d been there before. Sated into a stupor, Tonepheny watched through slitted eyes as the fire burned lower and lower, its glow throwing up exaggerated shadows on the walls. From the corners of his eyes, he thought he could see the shadows moving, but he couldn’t tell if they truly were or if it were a trick of his imagination.

When the washing up was done, Steve settled back down into his cushions, looking at Wanda expectantly. She, however, yawned, her jaw cracking, and looked over at him. “In the morning,” she murmured. “You’ve both been on the road and deserve your rest.” She plucked up thick blankets from a cedar chest and draped them over Steve and Tonepheny without so much as a by-your-leave before retreating to her bed in the corner. “Sleep,” she intoned, and there was power behind the word. Tonepheny couldn’t even protest before he was carried away into dark and dreamless rest.

 

* * *

 

 

When Tonepheny woke in the morning, he was alone at the fire pit, and there was no sign of Wanda or Steve, though there was a small tray near his head loaded up with hearty bread with clotted cream and jam smeared on it, as well as a few eggs and an apple. Tonepheny ate it all while staring suspiciously around the cottage. It seemed larger than he’d first believed, and he shivered a little, wondering if it was a trick of the eyes or an enchantment. The door was propped open, and a cool autumn breeze streamed in, slipping away again through the smoke hole over the fire.

There were drying herbs and flowers hanging from the rafters and even more live plants scattered around the space in pots. At first glance, the windows seemed too small to allow enough natural light for these little green things, but the more Tonepheny looked, the more he realized that the space was honey bright with sunlight, and that the brightness of the space did not seem to match the time of day at all. Half of him was impressed that so much witchery could be achieved in this day and age, and the other half of him was mistrustful.

Though he’d always been a deft hand with an anvil and a forge fire, he’d never had any aptitude for the kinds of spells or charms people wanted worked into metal objects. The only magic he imparted to his works was that which naturally came to most Creatures: a lack of susceptibility to mystical illusion, a certain resistance to wounds which might kill lesser beasts, and resilience against the ravages of time. Tonepheny’s iron works would still be beautiful and black long after human works had rusted to dust, and his silver and copper ornaments would remain gleaming bright in the face of tarnish and time’s patina. But none of his works would ever cast a glamor over their wearer or mold themselves with the flexibility of skin or do any of the other many magical feats commissioners had asked for over the years. Any spell Tonepheny tried simply blew up in his face, and he was loathe to trust the mystic arts now, after they’d ensnared him for so many years.

Reminded of this fact, he traced his binding chain to the front door, looped over a handle. There was a great deal of slack for him to work with, so he rose, washed up his dishes in the little basin, and made his way out of doors. Wanda was in her garden plot on hands and knees, seeing to weeds and giving each plant a loving touch. Steve was shirtless, chopping wood, and while Tonepheny still didn’t trust either of them, he could at least appreciate that in daylight, Steve was even a more impressive human than he’d first appeared on that moonlit night when he’d spirited Tonepheny away.

Wanda turned to look up at him and grinned. “Good morning. Was there enough breakfast or should I get you more? I don’t know if you eat as much as this one,” she said, giving Steve a wry look, “but you’re skin and bones, and I won’t have you hungry in my household.”

“It was plenty, thank you.”

Her smile brightened, and she stood, clapping the dirt from her gloves. “Steve has explained your predicament. If a unicorn couldn’t break the charm, I’m not sure how much more I can do for you, but if I can trace the origin of the spell, perhaps I can at least provide you the means to its undoing.”

Tonepheny tilted his head quizzically, not quite understanding.

“There are always rules to these things, little tricks and twists. No spell is truly unbreakable. Even if a witch can’t tease the thing apart, there is something or someone who can.

“As to your other problem,” –Tonepheny hunched self-consciously, embarrassed by the stumps he knew poked over his shoulders– “we may need to summon an oracle for that. The gods work in mysterious ways, and perhaps, given your circumstances, they might restore that which was taken from you.”

Tonepheny wanted to huff with incredulity at her understatement. “Mysterious ways.” He had not been a good man in his younger years. He’d strung along not only harpy hearts, but other Creatures as well. After he’d been captured, he’d watched the very blades he made with such care and precision strike down his masters, and he’d been conflicted. Why? Why was such senseless slaughter necessary? Why had he consented to make those cruel weapons? He’d never loved his masters, but he didn’t think anyone deserved the cruel deaths they'd experienced. Sometimes, in his darkest hours, he’d imagined Tiberius’ cruelties were the gods’ punishment for his actions earlier in life, but if that was the case, hadn’t he suffered enough by now? And was it right to punish a slave for obeying his master? To what extent was the blame Tony’s and to what extent did it rest with someone else? The thoughts raced round and round in his head until the balances of justice were entirely askew, and he knew in his heart that this world wasn’t just at all; if the gods were paying attention, they weren’t interested in fairness.

He didn’t speak any of this, though. It didn’t help him, and he had more pressing issues, like what Steve intended to do with him if his chains were loosed or if he did somehow, by some improbable miracle, regain his wings. There were other ways to bind his service that didn’t involve shackles, and with such a powerful witch on his side, Tonepheny imagined Steve wouldn’t hesitate to use one of them. It was the inconvenience of the thing, the fact that the chain had to be bound either to his hand or a stationary thing, that was surely all Steve wanted remedied.

Over at the woodpile, Steve halted for a moment and looked sidelong at Tonepheny. “We should put new medicine on your wounds. The old washed away in the rain.” He stood there, chest glistening in the autumn light, his smile wide, and Tonepheny shuddered. What was this human’s angle? He wanted to know now, rather than discover later.

“It was in the saddle bags, remember? Would you mind going to get it?”

Ah, an order. At last something to put him in his place. He slipped back into the cottage and found Steve’s saddlebags, rummaging through various pockets and pouches until he found the little tin of ointment. A dagger gleamed in the pouch right next to it, and for a moment, Tonepheny lingered, looking down at the blade. Maybe he could … What? Stab Steve and then be bound to a corpse? And where would he hide it? He had no pouches or pockets, no way to carry it secretly on him. “Stupid,” he scoffed at himself, and then went back outside, tin in hand.

Steve had donned his shirt again, and he smiled when he saw Tonepheny, holding out his hand for the tin. _Like a crocodile_ , Tonepheny thought, looking at those bright, white teeth. _I’ll find out one day. You’ll be like all the rest._

The chore of applying the cream should’ve been brusque and impersonal, but Steve seemed to take his time, checking Tonepheny’s wounds carefully, rubbing the cream in with the same kind of care Tonepheny remembered mothers showing their nestlings. It made him feel off balance, and he was grateful when the chore was done, shaking out his wrists to erase the touch of a human.

He could sense Wanda’s eyes on them, and he wondered what it looked like to her. She and her kind had been prosecuted the same as Creatures, though witches were human enough. Did that make her more or less trustworthy? And if she was kind to Steve, what did that say about him? He was a thief, but was he also some sort of black market kingpin, a man who bought and sold spells, potions, and creatures under the king’s nose, heedless of the law. But then he’d said that the laws had changed. Tonepheny had never heard any such news, so was it all just a trick, to make him trust Steve? Frustrated with his own circular thoughts, he shook his head and looked away from it all, into the shadow of the forest.

Wanda stood, a basket of weeds balanced on her hip, and said, “I’ll just dump these on the manure pile and then we’ll take a look at that chain, shall we?”

She was back in only a moment, but her gloves and hat had disappeared and somehow the dirt that stained he dress and arms had been cleaned away, though Tonepheny didn’t imagine she’d had time to wash up. “Steve, if you’d be so kind,” she said, gesturing to the point where the chain was hooked on the door.

Steve took up the end, frowning down at the way it clung to his finger.

“Now, both of you sit just there,” she said, pointing to half a log which had been fashioned into a bench in front of her cottage. Tonepheny, after a moment of hesitation, sat, uncomfortably aware of Steve’s proximity.

Wanda circled them both, studying the chains and occasionally touching them, muttering to herself and sketching with her fingers through the air. Finally, she plucked up the chain that spanned between Tonepheny’s wrists and traced each tiny link within it, red sparking from her fingers to the metal. Tonepheny fought the urge to pull away, unsure of what she was doing, but completely sure that interrupting a mage at work was infinitely more dangerous. When she reached the final link, the chain abruptly broke in two, reforming around his wrists into two neat bracelets. The connecting link that had reached to his neck similarly parted from its fellows, so that it now only wrapped around his throat. Wanda repeated the process with his ankle chain, and then contemplated the final length, which stretched between Steve’s finger and Tonepheny’s right wrist.

She traced link by link three times, her red sparks growing increasingly brighter and more violent with each pass, but at last she sat back, breathing heavily as though she’d just run a great distance. “This one,” she huffed, pointing at the offending chain, “is different.”

“I can see that,” Steve said with a touch of humor, earning him a glare from Wanda.

“It’s very old magic,” she said primly, straightening her skirts and neatening her hair. Her headdress glittered brightly in the sunlight, and for a moment Tonepheny was entranced by the jewels, by the power that seemed to spark within. “I can tell you how to undo it, but I can’t do it for you.”

Wanda beckoned them back inside, where she went about setting a pot of tea to brew. “I can only tell you what the chain tells me, and it might sound a bit cryptic, but that’s just the nature of old magic. It gives you enough to set you on the path, but it was never made to be easy to use.”

Tonepheny lamented again just how much he hated magic, and just how much he wished that he’d never been bound in the first place. If he hadn’t been so prideful, so boastful of his work, if he had been a better harpy in his younger years. He shook his head and tried to clear away ruminations of the past; now there was only the future, and he could only look toward it, try to make it work to his advantage.

“So what’s the message?” Steve asked, looking both intrigued and perturbed. Clearly, he’d hoped that Wanda would be able to simply break it so he could commence with whatever plan he had for Tonepheny.

“It tells me, ‘Bound by magic, only tighter bonds may break me.’”

Steve blinked at her a few moments more, and then said, “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“There’s not more?”

“I warned you it would be cryptic.”

Tonepheny felt his heart sink further; no human would go through the trouble of understanding the chain’s riddle in order to break it. They’d be stuck together forever, Tonepheny slave to Steve’s whims, bound to follow him or be left tied to a tree to starve to death. But Steve was already speaking again.

“Okay. Okay. What binds tighter than shackles? Maybe some sort of, of cage? Or maybe there’s another relic. Rope binds pretty tightly if you do it right. Or does the chain itself have to be bound? If you put more metal on top of the links, would that be binding them?”

Wanda chuckled at him. “These things are rarely so straightforward. Think on it a while.” The way she smiled at them infuriated Tonepheny, made him feel that she was hiding something from them, and for the first time in a long time, the spark to fight back woke within him. How dare she make light of this hell he’d been living for so long?

Steve, too, looked disgruntled. “Wanda, you know I have … matters to attend to. Are you really asking me to put that all aside and just sit here puzzling a riddle out?”

“No. I’m asking you to go back out into the world and puzzle it out there. You won’t be moving in with me, that’s for sure.”

Perturbed, Steve stared at her a moment longer, but he didn’t push more. Instead, he turned to look at Tonepheny. “Well, Tony. It looks like we’re stuck together a little longer. But we’ll get out of this. Hey,” he said, suddenly holding up a finger, “maybe it’s like those little straw finger traps from way out east. You’ve seen one. The more you pull the harder it sticks, but when you get closer …” As if to prove his point, Steve stood and walked over to Tonepheny until his bound finger touched Tonepheny’s right wrist and the chain between them disappeared entirely. For an incredibly stupid breath, Tonepheny wondered if it had really worked, but then Steve pulled back and the chain reappeared, winking cheekily silver at him.

“Oh well,” Steve said, smiling and rubbing at the back of his head. “I guess we’ll figure it out eventually.”

Wanda was watching them again, that same sly expression on her face. “Well, we have other matters to attend to,” she said finally, looking at the kettle as it began to whistle. “To summon an oracle, I’ll need you to gather a few things for me. We can do the summoning tonight to see to Tony’s wings.” She opened a bench, which proved to be full of thick leather-bound books, and ruffled through several before extracting one particularly hefty volume. “If you would please get me some water from the river, a river stone—one with a natural hole would be preferable, but I can make do if you find one that has a band of color all the way around—a rowan branch, and a feather—not one of Tony’s,” she said with a wink. They both stared at her blankly until she glanced up from the book. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

Like naughty children, both Steve and Tonepheny jumped and dashed for the door, the chain shortening between them as they squeezed through. In the early afternoon sunlight, Tonepheny felt exposed, but compelled by the chain, he naturally followed Steve. They padded silently into the woods, following the sound of the river, and Tonepheny studied the human to whom he’d be bound the rest of his life. Steve, as though aware of his scrutiny, glanced back and smiled.

“Well, it seems like we’ll be together for a while at least. Maybe we should get to know each other?” His tone was coaxing, gentle. Tonepheny flinched back, remembering the way Tiberius had been so honey-tongued at first. When he next looked, Steve was frowning. He looked down at his hands for a moment before dropping back so they were walking side-by-side.

“I was born in Brookland, where the Aurum confluences with the Argentium. Do you know it?”

Tonepheny could remember the place where the two big rivers of Aspis met, though he’d only ever seen it from the air. It was lush, densely populated, the second largest city after the Capitol. He nodded, but didn’t speak, though Steve looked at him expectantly. When the silence stretched on long enough, Steve continued.

“I wanted to be a knight ever since I was little. It was kind of silly if you think about it. Only nobility can become knights, and I was just some little apothecary’s son, and I was sick and skinny to boot. If you’d handed me a sword, it probably would’ve pulled me right over.” He laughed a little, as though inviting Tonepheny to be in on the joke. “But Lord Erskine, he didn’t put much stock in noble titles. He, he was so kind to me. He’s the reason I was able to become a knight.” His expression was softer now, a gentle smile, but also a pained one. Then he looked over at Tonepheny. “What about you? What did you do before … before everything terrible happened to you?”

“You mean before the king declared that my kind were less than human?”

Steve flinched and looked away. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to … to talk about it. If you don’t want to.”

Tonepheny didn’t want to give this human anything of himself, and yet … He was beginning to feel the sting of guilt for not showing gratitude. After all, Steve had taken him from the cage, given him food, and made his chains lighter, even if they still chafed. Though he knew the sting of betrayal waited down the road, in this moment, it seemed childish not to give something of himself.

“I was … I was born on the southern crags of the coast. Your people call it the Shale Slides, but we call it Strophades. It was the only harpy colony in Aspis, until … well.” Tonepheny shrugged, fingering the hem of his shirt sleeve. “It was fine. I miss the sea.” He didn’t know what more to say that wouldn’t give himself away. That his father had been a respected smith, but a cruel man, that his mother had been distant even though she’d loved him dearly. That he’d struggled to make good choices in friends and maybe that was why no one had come for him when he was taken. Or maybe they’d all been captured or forced to flee, too. Tonepheny didn’t want to share any of that with Steve, or with anyone. He didn’t want to think about it at all.

“I’ve never been there,” Steve volunteered, his expression surprisingly soft. “What’s it like?”

That was easier, though the telling made him homesick. As they searched for an appropriate river stone and a bird feather, Tonepheny described the place where he’d grown up, the vaulting shale cliffs where the harpies made their eyries, the hidden black sands beaches, reachable only if you could fly, the crashing waves, the violent sea storms, the fish, the dolphins, the birds. As the words tumbled out of his mouth faster and faster, he felt almost as if he were there again, the wind sifting through his feathers, Rhoderis and Hereweald and Piperia at his wing. Before he realized it, he’d spoken of them as well, all the strange quirks that made him love them. It had been ages since he’d talked so freely—Tiberius’ policy was “a silent beast is the best beast”—and he began to remember that he’d been a talkative Creature by nature. It was only when he looked up and discovered Steve sitting on a stone, a smile on his face and a feather in hand, that he realized he’d been going on and on, and he was immediately embarrassed.

“I’m sorry. I know I … I talk too much.”

“Not at all,” Steve said with a grin. “It’s clear you loved them very much.” He stood, cricked his neck back and forth, looked up and said, “It’s getting late. I’ve got the stone and the feather. If you’ll dip the water, we can get the rowan branch on our way back. We passed a rowan tree on the way here.” Tonepheny, embarrassed that he’d forgotten their chore almost entirely, hurriedly dipped the water into a skin and got out of the river, only to realize his talons had gone numb with the cold water. He stumbled clumsily and found himself propped up by Steve yet again, his big gentle hands on Tonepheny’s shoulders.

“Are you okay, Tony?”

“Fine. I’m fine. Just … lost my footing.”

They tramped back through the westering woods in silence and made Wanda’s cottage just as true night began to fall. Wanda was waiting with a meal already prepared, and she took the objects they’d gathered with a thank you. Over their meal of quail and squash, Tonepheny remained silent, wondering what had compelled him to reveal so much and cursing his wayward tongue. Had he blathered on that much to Tiberius when his chains had first changed hands? Or to his other masters before? Perhaps it was simply that Steve hadn’t censured him that had encouraged him to talk so much.

Wanda and Steve chatted idly, their talk mostly on neutral topics like the results of the crops this year and the height of the river, what with all the rain. They seemed perfectly content to let Tonepheny brood in silence, and he didn’t know what to make of that either. It was as if they expected nothing at all from him, though they’d already done so much, feeding him, easing his bindings. When would their price be exacted?

Once the meal was done, Steve cleared away the dishes, and after dithering for a moment, Tonepheny rose to help. Steve looked surprised to find Tonepheny at his elbow, but he said nothing, only passing along small bowls to be dried and stacked. When that was finished, Wanda rose as well, stretching.

“The moon should be up by now, and we will need her watchful eye. Go outside and I’ll be there in a moment.” The forest temperature had dropped with the loss of the sun, and Tonepheny shivered, grateful for the warmth his shirt provided. He and Steve stood awkwardly while they waited for Wanda, but when she emerged, silence seemed only sensible.

She had changed out her simple roughspun dress for a gown of scarlet damask silk, leaving her arms bare to the cold. Tonepheny was again struck by the impression that he wasn’t quite sure what her face looked like as she wordlessly steered them both, making them sit and then sketching symbols in the earth around them. Gradually, she deposited the objects she’d had them gather, and with each new piece, the clearing seemed to grow darker and darker while the moon grew brighter and brighter. When the final object, the rowan branch, was placed upright in the earth, they were plunged into pitch black, and Tonepheny fought the urge to panic. Above, the moon stilled gleamed as bright as ever, but it illuminated nothing; he could not even make out his hand in front of his face.

From the place where Wanda had stood, a woman appeared, but she was certainly not Wanda. Her figure was hazy, translucent, yet glowing, and Tonepheny felt he could not look at her directly. “You have suffered much, Tonepheny” she said, and her voice was not only in his ears but in his chest, in his throat, in his skin. “What you seek is not impossible, but first you must range far. You must gather tears from a stone, silk from a river, and a kiss from the wind, and bear them to the temple of the Earth Mother. She will restore what is lost. Do you understand, child?”

Trembling, unable to draw breath, Tonepheny bowed his head to the oracle and pressed his palms together. She drew nearer and nearer still, until her strange hand that was not a hand touched his face. “Swift winds.”

His eardrums imploded, and the darkness clapped in all around him. When he was at last able to blink the spots from his eye, Steve was at Wanda’s side, helping her to stand. She looked exhausted, soaked through with sweat, and she limped back inside without a word. A spear of guilt shot through Tonepheny; he had not realized it would take so much for her to give them this information. He followed forlornly after them, being sure to scuff his feet through the lines sketched in the dirt; magic-dumb though he was, he knew one did not simply leave a power circle intact after using it.

Inside, he procured a glass of cool goat’s milk from the cellar for Wanda and brought it to her where she lay in her bed. She smiled up at him, her eyes weary. “I hope, Tonepheny, that you are able to restore your wings.”

“Thank you for helping me,” he told her, steadying the bottle of milk for her. “It was … too generous.” She patted his cheek, not unlike the way the oracle had done, and quietly slipped away to sleep. Tonepheny watched her a moment longer before corking the milk and returning it to the cellar. When he returned to the cozy light of her cottage, the oracle and all that it had pressed upon him felt somehow both very distant and very close.

Steve was hunkered down in his pile of cushions, but he watched Tonepheny with sharp eyes. There was something searching about his gaze, something that made Tonepheny want to shuffle and hide himself away, but instead he nestled into his own pile of cushions and stared at the fire as it burned lower and lower.

“So,” Steve said at length. “The gods haven’t made life easy for us. A binding that binds tighter than this chain, tears from a stone, silk from a river, a kiss from the wind. I’m not even sure where to begin.”

Tonepheny looked up from under his eyelashes, half disbelieving. “You don’t actually mean to say that you’re going to find all these things.”

“Well, not just me. Us. I can’t exactly go anywhere without you.” He held up his finger, where the chain winked at them both as it swung between them.

“Why?” Tonepheny asked, his voice breaking. “Why would you go through all this trouble for me?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Steve said simply, shrugging his shoulders.

“That, that can’t be all of it. There must be something, some reason, some _thing_ you want from me.”

Steve blinked at him slowly, and his face shifted; Tonepheny didn’t know whether to call his expression pity or sadness or if it was all just a trick of the light. “I have to do this. That’s all there is to it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to,” Steve said simply. He sat up in his cushions and hooked his elbows on his knees, hands dangling into space. “But if you have any ideas about where we can get tears from a stone, I’m all ears.”

Strangely enough, Tonepheny did have an idea about that. One of the few advantages of being a Creature in Tiberius horrid cage was that people spoke around him indiscriminately; there was an assumption that any Creature in a cage was no more than a dumb beast, incapable of carrying off rumors and secrets.

“A few towns back, I heard a traveler mention the Weeping Stone of Gammaria. It’s supposed to be in the north, somewhere near Banner Pass. Maybe that’s where we can get tears from a stone.”

Steve smiled at him from across the fire, and nodded his head. “Then that's where we’ll go,” he said. “We’ll set off tomorrow once I’ve … well, don’t worry about that bit. For now, get some rest.” As though under a compulsion, Tonepheny found that all he could do was sink into his cushions and cloak and obey, nodding off into a slumber that was haunted by the voice of the oracle.

 

* * *

 

 

Unlike his previous leisurely morning, Steve woke Tonepheny at sunrise, hastening him out into the chill dawn air. On his way out the door, he caught sight of Wanda, still fast asleep in her bed. “If you’ll ready Libby,” Steve said, “I’ll put our food together. And I’ve got to …” he made a motion that told Tonepheny nothing at all and disappeared back into the cottage. Tonepheny’s thighs ached at the thought of being in the saddle again, and he hoped he’d be able to walk for at least part of the way, though his talons were awkward over such long distances. He went around back where he discovered a lean-to that at first glance didn’t look large enough for Libby, but when he entered it, he found it was warm and cozy, and far bigger than he’d imagined. He shivered, suspecting magic at play, but walked over to Libby and curried her warmly, fumbling with her tack. He was no horseman, but he had made gear for horses in the past and knew, in theory, how such instruments were meant to work. Libby watched him with a quizzical eye, snorting frequently in a way that seemed to imply she was unimpressed.

“I’d like to see you saddle yourself,” he grumbled as he cinched the final closure. She flipped her tail at him and walked out of her stall. Yet again, she’d been untethered, free to come and go as she wanted. They came back around to the front just in time to catch the tail end of a heated discussion between Wanda and Steve.

“—owe you at least something for all this.”

“You’ve done more than your fair share, Steve. I’m pleased to help you along on your mission free of charge.”

“That’s hardly fair, Wanda. You would’ve charged another man a king’s ransom for an oracle reading.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing you’re not another man.” Her tart expression stayed a moment longer before she noticed Tonepheny hesitating at the edge of the cottage with Libby behind him. “Good morning! You slept well, I trust.”

Tonepheny nodded sheepishly, ashamed of being caught eavesdropping, and stepped more fully into view, toying with Libby’s bridle, though he wasn’t really guiding her with it at all. Wanda, a blanket still clutched around her shoulders, disappeared back into the cottage for a moment before reemerging, two thick cloaks in hand. “Steve tells me you’re headed north. The snows may already be falling in some parts, and you’ll want to be as warm as possible.

“Oh no,” Steve started holding up a hand, “on top of everything else—“

“Take it, Steven,” Wanda said smartly, dumping one of the cloaks on Steve’s head. She handed the other more daintily to Tonepheny and then leaned in to kiss each of his cheeks. “I hope you succeed. And if you do, I hope you’ll visit again and share your tale. I’d love to hear it.”

“I will,” he found himself promising, resisting the urge to fidget as she fastened the cloak over his wing stumps.

To Tonepheny’s great relief, Steve made no move to boost him into the saddle, and they walked at a sedate pace for much of the morning. There was little conversation between them, and what they did say was stilted and unsure. Tonepheny was still having difficulty believing that Steve was truly doing all this because it was the right thing to do, and Steve, in turn, seemed to sense Tonepheny’s mistrust.

They stopped at the warmest part of the day, which remained cool with the chill of autumn, and then continued on until they reached a village around sundown. Steve hesitated, glancing between Tonepheny and the village gate, before steering them around its perimeter into the woods beyond. “I’m sorry,” he said as they settled camp. “I should’ve tried for an inn. I just didn’t want …”

“Go on,” Tonepheny said, more bitter than he’d first realized. “You didn’t want to be called a tail tapper again.”

“No,” Steve barked, looking at him with such intensity that Tonepheny found himself frozen. “No,” he repeated more softly. “I didn’t want them to insult _you._ You’ve already had enough of that to last a lifetime.”

“Why would that matter? I’ve been called everything under the sun. It wouldn’t have meant anything.”

“Wouldn’t it?” Steve asked, and his question seemed so genuine that Tonepheny hardly knew how to answer. After a moment, Steve sighed, and turned back to the fire. “Would you prefer stew or grilled fish tonight?”

The conversation lingered in the air long after Steve had doused the fire and gone to sleep. Why in the world would Steve care not only about his freedom and his wings, but apparently his reputation as well? He was a strange human, unlike any Tonepheny had ever met before. Even before the king’s laws had changed, humans had generally kept apart from Creatures, meeting them only to do business. Creatures had been welcome in inns, but even in the common dining rooms, the groups rarely mingled. How was it that this singular human seemed so concerned with the affairs of not only Tonepheny but Creatures in general? Maybe it was because he was from a larger city. Tonepheny had never done business in the big cities of Aspis, but he had heard that before everything happened, humans and Creatures lived mixed, rubbing elbows in their daily lives. It was hard for him to even imagine such a world.

He drifted off still mulling over everything that had passed.

 

* * *

 

 

The trek north proved a tedious one. Steve mostly avoided villages except to buy supplies, and the air between them remained tensely quiet, though from time to time Steve struck up an innocuous conversation or whistled a jaunty tune. He treated Tonepheny with kid gloves, and though it seemed silly, it chafed Tonepheny almost as badly as had his captivity. He was frustrated with himself for being irritated, unable to discern what it was he wanted from Steve, especially as more and more his suspicions about Steve’s actions just didn’t seem to match the reality of their situation.

His health improved daily, and while he still couldn’t walk very fast—his talons simply were not made for it—he could walk far. As their speed improved, Steve began switching them out on riding Libby, who seemed bemused by her human’s actions. She gave Tonepheny an easy ride, but Steve himself seemed to bounce oddly in the saddle, as though Libby were purposefully giving him a bad seat.

One evening, Tonepheny asked after it. “Oh,” Steve smiled, “she thinks I’m being lazy when I ride and you walk. It’s her way of letting me know she disapproves.”

“You speak as though she understands the situation.”

“Well, she’s a smart horse,” Steve said, but his expression seemed a little uneasy, as though he were holding something back. Tonepheny watched more sharply after that and began to realize how often Steve spoke to his horse. And not just little words of encouragement like “good girl” or “woah girl” but fully fleshed sentences. “I’m sorry we don’t have an apple for a treat, but maybe in the next town they’ll have some.” “You’ve got to be more careful, or you’ll get a stone in your shoe, and you know that’s never fun.” More and more Tonepheny began to suspect that it was not simply in his mind—Libby was no ordinary horse.

When they were within a day of Banner Pass, more evidence came to light in the form of a pair of thieves who crept on their camp by night. Tonepheny had already been asleep, so he woke to chaos. Libby had one thief by the collar and she was rearing up, dragging his shirt over his head with every rise. Steve was on the other side of the camp, the second thief to hand. Tonepheny blinked, having difficulty believing his eyes. Steve appeared to be a strong human, to be sure, but Tonepheny had never thought any human capable of lifting another in quite such a manner. Steve had his attacker by the belt and was carrying him the way a mother cat might carry her kitten, but the act appeared completely effortless. Steve might've carried a small sack of seed in the same manner.

“Now you gentlemen seem sensible,” Steve was saying, “so I’d recommend you ride to the Pass and offer up your services to the border guard. They pay well, and you might even get sent south, where the weather is warmer. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

The man who was being held by his belt kicked wildly, trying to get free, and as though he were handling something no heavier than a feather, Steve slammed him up against a tree. “Now I was trying to be nice. And here you’ve just ruined your chance.” He slammed the thief once again, and this time the man slumped unconscious in Steve’s grip. The one Libby still had by the collar went still, and Steve glanced over at him. “Are you planning to behave now?”

He nodded frantically, and Steve dropped his companion, moving to one of their travel bags to extract a length of rope. He swiftly tied the men back-to-back and surveyed them, hands on his hips. “Now as I was saying, the border guards are always hiring, and they pay well. So once you two manage to stand up together, you can just head in that direction. Since you’re the sensible one, you should really make sure that your companion here is the one who walks backwards. It’ll teach him a lesson.” Steve left them sitting there, the one unconscious and the other still nodding frantically, and turned back to their camp. He sighed and then noticed that Tonepheny was awake.

“Sorry about all the ruckus, Tony. We had some guests.”

“What the hell?”

Steve’s chuckle was a little self-deprecating. “I don’t much feel like camping out next to them for the rest of the night, so now the question is, do I move them somewhere else, or do we move on?”

“Guests?” Tonepheny murmured, still confused. He slowly got up, shaking out his cloak and looking at the two men, the one limp and the other cowering. He could see the poverty in their clothing, the ragged holes and hollow cheeks of desperation, and he understood that they must’ve been trying to steal something to get food. Painfully, they reminded him of himself. “Where’s our bread?” he asked Steve, the words spilling out before he’d realized what he was doing.

“The bread? It’s in with the potatoes, but …” Tonepheny didn’t wait for Steve to continue. He pulled out the little hard rolls they’d bought a few towns back and set them on a scrap of cloth next to the men. When he was done, he began gathering their things without a word, too tired and dazed to much think about what he was doing. He could feel Steve’s gaze on him, but through the haze of late night exhaustion, it weighed less heavy than it usually did. When the saddle bags were packed, he turned to the man who was still awake.

“We’ve heard there’s a strange rock near here called the Weeping Stone of Gammaria. Do you know anything about it?”

The man blinked up at him, trembling, and said, “Why would you want to go to that place? It’s dangerous.”

“We have to go. It’s important. Can you tell us where it is?”

“It’s, it’s just down this road. Another day’s ride or so. There’s a sign warning of danger. You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you. I hope you can find work.”

He and Steve walked into the night, Tonepheny shuffling, and Steve silent as a passing cat. For such a large man, his boots made hardly any noise at all, even in the dry fallen leaves. At times, Tonepheny almost felt he was travelling alone, but then the chain would clink between them or Steve would take up his whistling, and the illusion of solitude disappeared. Tonepheny could never tell if he was grateful or sorry for the reminder.

When they’d walked for an hour or more, Steve said, “That was kind of you.”

“What?”

“The bread. Leaving them the bread.”

“They were hungry. It was plain on their faces. I couldn’t just … I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you. I’ll understand if you’re angry with me.” He hazarded a glance over at Steve and found him looking back, his eyes warm even in the chill darkness of Aspis’ northern-most borders.

“I’m not angry. We can always get more food.” Steve said nothing else, and eventually, he had them stop again to catch a little more rest. They’d been going at a fair clip, and sweat had gathered on Tonepheny’s skin, clinging wetly to his neck and back. With a full stop, it quickly cooled and left him shivering, and they had no fire by which he could dry and warm himself. Steve seemed to notice his discomfort, and rather than settling into a hollow opposite Tonepheny as he had done on previous nights, he sat down right next to him. “Here. Gather close. We’ll keep each other warm.”

Steve arranged their cloaks such that they overlapped and trapped body heat between them. His side pressed against Tonepheny’s, and Tonepheny discovered that Steve felt like a small sun. His body heat was almost overwhelming, so warm where Tonepheny had been so cold, and the points where they touched—hips, arms, shoulders—were almost uncomfortably hot.

This close, the chain between them was hardly there at all, yet strangely it seemed to pull Tonepheny closer in a manner it never had before, almost as if, for the first time, Steve was exerting his will on it. Confused by all he’d seen Tonepheny hardly knew what to say, and by the time he’d straightened his thoughts out, he’d drifted away to sleep again.

Come morning, though, his questions were still bright in his mind, and weeks with Steve had loosened his tongue to a dangerous extent. Without considering the wisdom of voicing his curiosity, he said, “I’ve never seen a human so strong.”

Steve, ahead of him on the trail, stiffened, but his tone was lightly neutral. “Oh?”

“You lifted that man like he weighed nothing at all. Like he was a kitten.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Perturbed, Tonepheny jogged forward until he was even with Steve, and peered closely at his face. A blush dusted his cheeks, and his lips pouted out stubbornly. “You hadn’t noticed?” Tonepheny repeated, pushing the incredulity into his tone. Steve’s blush deepened and he looked away from Tonepheny, trying to hide his face.

“I was caught up with the excitement of the moment. I’m sure that’s all it was.”

“No. No, that’s not all it was. You have a horse who seems to be as smart as any human, and you rescue a load of Creatures no one else gives a damn about, you lift a human like it’s nothing. Tell me true, are you actually human?”

“I’m human,” Steve said, but the way he fidgeted told Tonepheny that there was more he wasn’t saying.

“You’re sure you’re not a glamored giant and unicorn or something like that?”

Steve’s self-deprecating snort was a fair reward, though he still shook his head. “No. I’m not glamored, and neither is Libby.”

“Fine. Keep your secrets. I’ll find out eventually.” Out of irritation, Tonepheny jogged even further ahead, and Libby joined him. Tonepheny got the impression that she thought her human was being silly. “He is being silly,” he told her, reaching up to brush the wiry fur on her neck. “You’re much more sensible than he is.” She tossed her head in agreement and defecated directly into Steve’s path. He dodged the dung easily enough, and the wry smile he shot up to Tonepheny and Libby was full of good humor.

The weather was fair for their entire journey that day, but because the universe had a sense of humor, just as they came upon the sign the thieves had told them about, clouds began mounting in the west. Steve glanced back at them and then down at the sign that warned “Danger: Beasts Ahead.” It was picked into a narrow path that shot off north from the main road, and Tonepheny guessed that the weeping stone might be at the foot of the cliffs he could see towering over the trees.

“Should we try for it tonight,” Steve asked, “or make camp and go on in the morning?”

Impatient to know if the weeping stone was simply a rumor, Tonepheny chafed to move forward, but the looming rain clouds looked threatening and dangerous, and he was cognizant of the fact that Steve could end this quest at any moment if he deemed it was no longer worth the trouble. “Let’s make camp. Maybe we can set up a lean-to and keep out of the wet.”

With his new goal in mind, Tonepheny began gathering branches and shaping them into a shelter large enough for both he and Steve to sleep under. “You’ll have to deal with the damp, Libby. Sorry about that,” he said, patting her as he passed. She snorted at him, but started trailing him like a duckling after its mother, lipping at the branches he gathered or watching curiously as he shaped them into a sturdy lean-to. With a flourish, he draped his oil cloth cloak over the pine branches and then gestured impatiently for Steve’s own. It was only once the cloak was in hand that Tonepheny realized he was stepping out of line, getting above his place, but when he darted a searching glance at Steve, he discovered that Steve was watching not with irritation or impatience, but with something quite like wonder.

“You put that together in five minutes,” he said, and his voice was equally awed.

Tonepheny glanced at the little humble shelter, his brain was racing along, already thinking of ways he could’ve made the design more efficient. “It’s nothing,” he murmured, scratching his talons into the dirt. They were finally growing out again, and with all the walking, some of the blunt edges had begun to sharpen back into points. Instinct would drive him to try perching soon, and he wasn’t sure how well that would go, given he didn’t have wings to take him up onto any branches or crags. He’d have to figure something out, and he imagined whatever means he found, it would be terribly undignified.

“It’s not nothing,” Steve said, testing the shelter by giving it a little shake. It didn’t budge, and he stepped back, studying it again. A flush crept up his face as he admitted, “I normally don’t bother with a shelter. Mine always fall in right away, and I learned a long time ago that it’s better to just get wet all night than to have a branch fall on your face and break your nose while you’re fast asleep.” He grinned sheepishly at Tonepheny, and he found himself grinning back.

They sped through setting a fire and warming a meal before the rain could strike and then hunkered in together just as the first drops fell. With the rain, the forest was in near absolute darkness, Tonepheny supposed there was a certain boldness afforded by such conditions, because hunkered up together, Steve dared to ask about Tonepheny's past for the first time since his disastrous attempt just after rescuing him, nearly two weeks ago. “Were you a builder for your people? Is that why you managed the shelter so quickly?”

Part of Tonepheny wanted to refuse an answer, to continue denying any part of himself to Steve, but Steve had shared his food, his protection, his fire, and just as guilt for endlessly taking without giving anything in return had weighed upon Tonepheny at Wanda’s, it now began to press upon him here, hunkered at Steve’s side. “In a manner of speaking,” he admitted, aware of the shadow of Steve pressed against him. “I was a smith. Sometimes I worked with wood as part of that job, but mostly it was other things. Pots, pans, kettles …” he hesitated and decided to bite his tongue on any mention of weapons. He wasn’t that man anymore. “I’ve always liked making things,” he softly admitted.

“That’s a wonderful gift.”

“It was all I knew. My father was a smith, too. It seemed the only logical choice, ever since I was a nestling.” He could feel Steve nod beside him, feel his chest as it expanded to husk out a sigh.

“In another life, I would’ve liked to make things. When I was a boy, I used to draw in the dirt with a stick, or on the side of the hut with a spare bit of old charcoal. It always made me happy.”

“And you can’t do that now?”

“It’s not that I can’t,” Steve said slowly. “I just … I have other things I must do. Things which are important to me.”

“Like rescuing a feather-brained Creature from a cruel man?” Tonepheny held his breath. Why did he have to push this so? Why did he have to understand why Steve had freed him? And why couldn’t he just take what Steve said at face-value?

“Among other things,” Steve said carefully. He sighed again and turned over onto his side, facing Tonepheny. “Go to sleep. We should rest up for tomorrow.” And with the utmost ease, it seemed, Steve’s breathing evened out and he apparently drifted off to dreamland.

Sleep did not come so easily to Tonepheny and he lay awake long into the night, thinking about this strange human. It was by grace of his sleeplessness that he realized the forest had grown quiet. The night rain still pattered regularly, but the little night creatures who moved about even in the wet had grown silent, and the very air itself seemed to still with anticipation. Far in the distance, Tonepheny heard something crash and shudder, and a zing of fear shot down his spine.

“Steve,” he whispered, reaching out to shake him awake. “Steve, there’s something—“

“I hear it,” Steve whispered. The darkness was still complete, and even with his sharp eyes, Tonepheny could scarcely make out a thing, even Libby’s white blur beside their shelter. Her ears were back and her tail swished furiously, though she made no noise of fright. Beside him, he could feel Steve slowly rise into a crouch, his sword and shield in hand, though Tonepheny had no idea how he’d gathered them so silently. “Get ready to run,” Steve whispered.

“Run? But Steve—“

Steve shushed him and crept out into the forest. Tonepheny could hear the rain striking his shield in little _plinks_ , and somehow that noise was easier to track than the crashing which was drawing ever closer. The world seemed to hold its breath, and Tonepheny held on with it, waiting to see what exactly was coming toward them. The silence before the crash was deafening, and when a tree came toppling toward them, Tonepheny had hardly any time at all to look at what followed behind it. In the darkness, all he could make out was a massive shape, more than twice as tall as Steve, a blot of darkness against darkness.

Libby screamed and reared in front of him, kicking out her hooves and presenting a taller and more fearsome target than Steve. The thing, whatever it was, roared in turn, and the ground shook as it did something, though Tonepheny couldn’t begin to guess what. He cursed the darkness which hid Steve from him; all he could catch were flashes of shield and sword, footsteps that were nearly silent as they circled the creature.

“Please,” Steve called out, “whatever you are, whoever you are, we mean you no harm. We’re just travelers.”

Another roar was his only answer, and Tonepheny followed their crashing, thumping, shaking encounter while Libby guarded him fiercely, kicking her hooves out whenever she felt threatened. Tonepheny wished desperately for more light, and as if in answer, lightning flickered across the sky, throwing sharp shadows down into the forest. In that instant he saw it, a golem, huge and hulking, its fists thumping the ground again and again in rage.

Darkness fell again, and Tonepheny wracked his brains, trying to remember how one was supposed to pacify a golem. From the place where they were fighting, Tonepheny heard a roar, a strike, and then a moan that was distinctly Steve’s. “Steve,” he cried, and watched as the golem swung around on him, its hulking shadow drawing nearer. Libby screamed again, and Tonepheny immediately became afraid for her. He wouldn’t see her hurt on his account. It was bad enough that Steve had already been downed.

Determined, he darted out in front of Libby just as lightning slashed the sky again. “Please,” he shouted, holding up his hands, “please don’t hurt her. She’s just trying to protect me.” The golem roared again, but miraculously, his progress slowed. Another flash of lightning showed Tonepheny that the golem’s glistening stone eyes were watching him closely. He fell to his knees and again said, “Please.”

“Protect?” the golem roared, but its tone was strangely childish and confused.

“That’s right. Protect. She’s just trying to protect me.” Behind him, Libby had gone strangely quiet and still, though he could feel her above him, her head bent protectively over his shoulder.

“Protect!” the golem screamed, and Tonepheny was struck by how very juvenile it sounded, like a toddler throwing a tantrum. The word plucked a string of memory in Tonepheny’s mind; golems were protectors, too. That was what they were shaped for.

“What are you protecting?” he asked, holding up his hands beseechingly.

“Protect?” the golem asked again, quieter this time. The earth shook with a massive thump, and the next flash of lightning showed Tonepheny that the golem was sitting now, its feet sprawled, his hands hanging at its side.

“Do you have something to protect?” Tonepheny asked again.

As if in answer, the golem opened its mouth wide and pointed inside. On its tongue, Tonepheny could see a green, glowing gem, an enchanted object, to be sure.

“No protect,” the golem groaned. “Hurt.”

“Does that gem hurt you?”

“No protect.”

Very hesitantly, Tonepheny stood, reaching back to steady Libby, who was blustering and panting behind him. He could just see Steve, still crouching against a tree and holding his arm, but otherwise unmoving. He seemed to sense that moving now would only start the fight again.

“If you’d like, I can take the gem out.”

“Take!” the golem roared, and it slammed its fists against the ground.

“Okay. Okay. I can take it out for you. I’m just going to get a little closer, okay?”

The lightening flashed again, showing Tonepheny the craggy body of the golem. Ever so carefully, he moved in, climbing first on the golem’s knee and then scrabbling up its chest, talking the entire time with soothing, gentle words. When he reached the golem’s head, he found himself caught in the glittering stone eyes. Who had shaped this wretched, sad creature to be in such pain? What human had made him so poorly?

“I’m going to take out the gem, okay?”

Pathetically, the golem whimpered and opened his mouth wide for Tonepheny. The gem sat in a pit on his tongue, and it crackled with a sickly green light. Tonepheny was afraid to touch it, but he was more afraid for the poor suffering golem, so he reached in and plucked at the stone. The golem roared, jerking and twitching, nearly unseating Tonepheny, but he managed to get a hold of the gem, and he hauled back with all his strength. At first nothing happened at all, save that the golem howled more loudly and his fists began to flail. But then, abruptly, the gem jittered loose and Tonepheny went flying down, landing flatly on his back and knocking all the air from his lungs.

“Tony!” Steve screamed, and in a breath, he was at Tonepheny’s side, hands hovering without touching. Tonepheny, however, was captivated by the sight of the golem as it slowly melted down and reformed, revealing pink flesh and wiry gray hair. When the transformation was done, there was not one but two beings standing before one, one a smooth golem and the other a man. Lightning slashed across the sky, and in its light, Tonepheny realized several things all at once: that the rain had stopped, that the golem was made of stone, and that it was crying.

“Steve,” he gasped, grabbing onto Steve’s arm. “A flask. A flask!”

“What?”

“Tears from a stone!” Tonepheny pointed and was rewarded when Steve rose without another word, snatching up one of their packs and pulling a little crystal tube from it. He dashed over to the golem, paused for a moment to see if it would move, but when it remained still, he held the flask to its eyes, gathering the fat tears which rolled down its cheeks. When the tube was full, Steve carefully stoppered it and held it up, panting with relief and exhaustion.

Tonepheny turned to the man, who stood there naked as the day he was born, blinking at them both with wonderment and disorientation.

“You took out the stone,” he murmured. “No one’s ever offered to take out the stone before.”

“That was the right thing to do?” Tonepheny asked, openening his palm and staring down at the little green gem in his hand.

“It was,” the man said, caught somewhere between laughing breathlessly and crying. He collapsed onto his bottom on the ground, and Steve was there in a second, removing his cloak and wrapping it around the man’s shoulders.

“Here,” he said, “come sit in our shelter and tell us your tale.”

The man’s name was Bruce, as it turned out, and years ago, he had been a mage of some repute. “I was trying to make a golem to protect the trolls and gnomes that used to live in these hills. The king’s men were driving them out, and it was wrong. I knew it was wrong. I wanted to help them. But something went wrong. I’d made this, this gem,” he said gesturing at the stone in Tonepheny’s hand, “to make the golem stronger, but when I put it in his mouth, he swallowed me whole. We were one. I lost all sense of myself, and we were in such terrible pain. We ended up driving the gnomes and trolls out more quickly than the humans ever could’ve. I, I hurt them.” He was crying now, too, and tears still streamed down the golem’s face.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Steve said, patting Bruce’s shoulders.

“But it was. I made the magic. It was my flawed spell.”

“We all make mistakes,” Steve told him, and in the weight of his words, Tonepheny sensed that Steve spoke from life experience. Tonepheny, too, felt that weight on his shoulders, in the memories of his masters’ blood spilling out, cut down by the very swords Tonepheny had once proudly forged for them. Bruce made no reply, but simply cried until he collapsed into an exhausted sleep. Tonepheny and Steve stayed awake the rest of the night, watching the forest as the golem and Libby stood watch over them.

First light came watery and gray, and Steve searched through his pack until he came up with a spare pare of breeches and a shirt for Bruce. They were short on food, and with only wet wood, a fire was not forthcoming, but they managed to make a meal of forest nuts and the last of their apples. Bruce woke just as they were packing up camp and gratefully accepted the clothes.

“Is there somewhere we can take you, someone you know?”

“Don’t worry about me,” Bruce said, waving his hand. “I need to destroy this stone,” he said, patting the little leather pouch Steve had given him to carry the dangerous thing in. “And to do that, I should be as far from human settlements as possible. It won’t be safe. But is there anything I can do for you? As a thank you for freeing me?”

“We already got the tears—“ Steve began, but Tonepheny quickly interrupted.

“We need to find silk from a river. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

Bruce pursed his lips and thought for a moment before replying. “I’ve heard of a tribe of naiads who live in the Argentium. They’re famous for making clothing. Maybe they can help you.”

They thanked Bruce and watched him disappear back into the woods, the golem trailing after him. “I hope he’s okay,” Tonepheny murmured when he was gone from sight.

“I think he will be,” Steve said, his confidence almost admirable. Tonepheny wished he could feel as sure. Steve sighed and stretched his shoulders, but he winced at the last moment, his right arm abruptly shooting back down to his chest.

“You’re hurt!” Tonepheny accused.

“No. No, it’s fine. It’s nothing.”

More and more as they traveled together, Tonepheny was learning that Steve was an absolutely terrible liar. “Show me,” he demanded, pulling at Steve’s shirt without really thinking about it. He wrestled Steve’s sleeve back until he’d revealed his entire forearm, sickeningly purple and blue. “Steve! This is … Is this broken?” His fingers hovered over Steve’s skin, afraid to touch lest he make it worse.

“It’s fine.”

“Skies, it is broken, isn’t it,” Tonepheny accused, fluttering helplessly. He’d never been good with the healing arts, and he wasn’t sure what to do, but he was pretty sure you were supposed to splint a broken arm. He began searching the forest floor for adequate sticks, his talons scrabbling over the ruddy forest mast.

“Tony, you don’t have to—“

“You,” Tony said, pointing sharply, “get up on Libby right this instant. Skies, are you hurt anywhere else? Your back? Your legs? Why didn’t you say anything?” Libby seemed more than happy to help Tonepheny put her master in his place, and she bumped against Steve insistently until he clambered one-handed into the saddle, a smile dancing on his lips.

“This is wholely unnecessary.”

“Give me your arm,” Tonepheny groused, setting his chosen sticks against Steve’s forearm and searching their saddle bags for something to wrap them with. He found two squares which he suspected were handkerchiefs and wrapped them carefully until he was satisfied. “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything.”

“I can walk just fine,” Steve pointed out, taking his arm back against his belly when it was wrapped. “It’s only my arm that’s bruised.”

“Humor me,” Tonepheny said, not without a certain amount of mirth. “Were you always this impossible?”

“Yes,” Steve said without hesitation. As they set off east toward the Argentium, Steve chuckled in the saddle. “You remind me of my friend Bucky. He would’ve liked you.”

“Oh?” It was the first time Steve had mentioned any of his friends, and Tonepheny was curious. “Where is he now?”

“Serving the king,” Steve said, and his tone suggested he wanted to speak no more of it, but somehow Tonepheny couldn’t quite leave it alone.

“Oh? Is he some fine knight like you?”

“He’s … he’s a lord. And an advisor to the king. He might be on the Latverian border now, for all I know.” Steve’s face grew melancholy and Tonepheny regretted that he’d asked.

“You must miss him.”

“Very much. But I couldn’t stay in the Capitol anymore. It just wasn’t for me.”

Tonepheny let it go, and after some time, their conversation resumed, more easy, less personal. It was several days to the Argentium, and they had no idea where along the river the naiads might be, but they could always just travel south until they found them. Tonepheny did not voice his greatest fear: that the naiads had been driven out just as the harpies had, that there were no naiads left to speak of and that they would never find river silks. Steve seemed to sense his fear, and spoke about the creatures he’d seen in his travels since he left the Capitol. Griffins, elves, dryads, and one extremely memorable minotaur.

“They’re not all gone,” Steve reassured him one morning as they cooked up a rabbit. The air had grown colder with the encroaching winter, and Tonepheny clung close to the fire and to Steve, their arms brushing as they cut off chunks of rabbit. “Many of them went into hiding, got glamors, some even fought with the resistance when the coup happened.”

“How far do you reckon the river is?”

“Not far now. We’re very near the eastern border.”

Tonepheny tried to call up the lay of the land in his mind, the topography he hadn’t flown over in years. The Argentium flowed down the eastern border of Aspis until it turned sharply west to its confluence with the Aurum. “Doesn’t that put us close to the Latverian border? Where all the soldiers are massing.”

“Well,” Steve grimaced, “yes. But we’re just two bodies and a horse. It should be pretty easy to stay out of their way.”

“Good. Your arm can’t possibly be healed yet. I wish you’d still wear the splint.”

“It’s fine, Tony,” Steve said, waving his arm around as if to prove it. The very sight put Tonepheny’s teeth on edge. “It isn’t broken, I promise.”

“It most certainly is.”

“No. Just a bad bruise.”

They each worked on their breakfast in silence, a simple oat porridge, but Tonepheny continued to shoot Steve suspicious looks. There was nothing for it, so he turned his mind to other problems, considering the logistics of approaching an army. “It’s going to be harder to get food,” he murmured, looking out into the woods. Most of the leaves had fallen, and the game were growing more scarce, a combination of being hunted by the king’s men and the oncoming winter. Most of the autumn nuts had been cleared away as well, and the closer they got to the border, the more suspicious village people became of Steve, who bore a sword and shield and could only mean trouble in such an unstable location.

“We’ll manage,” Steve said. “Once we have the river, we can fish. And if need be, I can always go into a camp of king’s men and try to barter for food.”

“Didn’t you just say we’d be avoiding them?”

“Well, you’ll, I mean …” Steve bit his tongue and looked shamed, glancing up at Tonepheny with sad eyes.

“Ah, I see.” It was only the lowly creature who needed to be hidden. A knight like Steve would be fine.

“But we probably won’t need to barter with them. We can slip right on by.”

Steve sounded remarkably self-assured, but his words made Tonepheny uneasy. It had been some time since he’d been around warring humans, but he could still vividly remember it. Their callous disregard for life, their hatred of Creatures like Tonepheny, their cruel words and crueler deeds. The thought of being near such forces filled him with apprehension, and he hoped avoiding them was as easy as Steve claimed it would be. The closer they got to the border and the river, the more evidence they found of strife: burned out homes, abandoned farms, patches of forest chopped to nothing, great dirty patches in the earth, which Steve said were likely where camps had been made. It all made Tonepheny more and more nervous, and he walked closer and closer to Steve as the days passed.

At last they came upon the river, wide, but shallow and rapid, not easily crossed. Steve stared at it a long while before turning them south, but Tonepheny noticed that he grew quieter, his face more stoic the longer they trudged along the river’s bank. On the third day of following it, they found a body, decomposed into a skeleton, but still clothed. Steve stared down at it for a long time and then sighed, putting his face in his hand.

“We can … we could stop for the night. Bury him?” Tonepheny suggested, unsure of what else he could do for Steve.

Steve nodded, face still hidden, and quickly moved to take their packs from Libby, who herself looked subdued. They had no tools with which they could bury the skeleton, so they gathered river rocks and built a cairn over him. When it was done, Steve stood back and looked down at where the body now rested, far above the flood line. “I wish I’d known your name,” he said, “that I could tell your family. Gods go with you.”

The returned to their camp in silence, made the meal in silence, ate in silence. It sat uneasily with Tonepheny, who had grown used to amicable conversation with Steve, had come in fact, to enjoy it. “Do you think he was a soldier?” he finally asked, poking at the bones of his fish, now mostly picked clean.

“I know he was,” Steve murmured, his eyes distant. “That was an army uniform he was wearing. I imagine raiders took his weapons and armor, but the clothes are worth next to nothing.”

“You seem, I don’t know … Like you knew him or something.”

Steve’s smile was painful to see, a weak thing which wrinkled his brow down over his face, like he was trying to smile only to stop himself from crying. “I knew enough like him. Young eager men who wanted to serve their liege lord. Who were only following orders.” He practically spat the last sentence, his knuckles white as he clenched them.

“Do you, do you want to talk about it?”

“That’s all right, Tony,” Steve said, looking exhausted now, though he offered Tonepheny a truer smile. “It was in the past. I’d rather let it stay there.”

They went to bed early that night, and rose early the next morning. With the days growing shorter, more and more they traveled in darkness at the beginning and end of each day, and that is, perhaps, what saved them from stumbling into an encampment of soldiers. Steve and Tonepheny were nearly on top of them before Steve spotted the campfires and steered Tonepheny deeper into the woods. “Farther,” he hissed. “Father. We don’t want to get caught by their perimeter guards or patrols.” Going through the forest was slower, and with no sense of how far the encampment might stretch, Tonepheny felt like they made barely any progress at all before night was falling again. Steve didn’t trust the uneven footing for themselves or for Libby, so he called an early halt and had them set a camp with no fire at all.

“I’m going to go scout the soldiers,” Steve told Tonepheny. “Wait here, and don’t move.”

Before Tonepheny could argue, Steve was off, so eerily silent that the moment he was out of sight, Tonepheny could no longer track him. He and Libby waited in the dark for what seemed ages, only the hooting of owls to keep them company. The night hours stretched on and on and just as he began to fear the worst, Steve emerged from the trees. By the light of the cold winter moon, his face was a mask of fury. He marched straight to the saddle bags and began changing clothes, donning, for the first time since he’d rescued Tonepheny, the black breeches, boots, shirt, cloak, and mask he’d worn to rescue the creatures of Tiberius’ show.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Tonepheny hissed, grabbing onto Steve’s uninjured arm and holding him tight.

“Correcting a travesty,” Steve hissed back, trying to shake Tonepheny off.

“What? Steve—“

“It’s none of your concern, Tony. Stay here and wait for me.”

“The hell it’s not my concern! You’d leave me chained up here while you go off and, what, steal from a bunch of soldiers?” In the time they traveled together, Tonepheny had nearly forgotten that Steve was not only a knight but also a thief, and now that knowledge roared to the forefront again, filling him with fear and anger. What need did Steve have to steal? He was a capable hunter, and he had barely made a dent in the coins he’d liberated from Tiberius; it was ridiculous that he’d be so risky as to steal his way into a camp of the king’s own men for some stupid treasure.

“I’m not stealing,” Steve said, gritting his teeth and shaking his arm again.

“Then what the hell are you doing?”

“What I would’ve been doing all along if I hadn’t rescued you!”

Hurt, Tonepheny shrank away from the sudden anger, but he didn’t go far before the chain caught him up. Steve always gave him such slack that he barely remembered the chain anymore, and yet now it kept him close, made him yank and tug to try and scramble away.

“Tony? Tony, wait, I’m sorry.”

“I know I’m a burden on you. I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“Tony, stop!” Steve raised his hand and Tonepheny flinched away, waiting for the blow that was at last coming. He’d thought he could trust Steve, thought he was different from the other masters, that he truly intended to free Tonepheny, but now … He jerked with shock when he felt Steve’s hand on him, not cruel but gentle, touching his face, his fingers caressing Tonepheny’s cheekbone. He blinked up at Steve, confused and afraid.

“Tony, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lose my temper with you. I was angry with the soldiers, but that doesn’t give me the right to take it out on you. Can you forgive me?”

“Forgive you?” Tonepheny parroted stupidly.

“Please? What I did was wrong.”

It didn’t make sense; why was Steve asking for forgiveness? He was the master and Tonepheny was the slave in chains. No matter what the last few weeks had been like, that remained a fact, so long as Tonepheny’s wrist was bound to Steve’s will. Yet as Steve caressed his face again, moved to scratch Tonepheny’s fluffed crest, he felt the fear go out of him. Steve hadn’t struck him, had apologized, and even seemed genuinely sorry.

“Of, of course I forgive you,” Tonepheny stammered, reaching up to place his hand over Steve’s. “But what exactly are you planning on doing? I don’t think it’s a good idea to go and steal from a bunch of soldiers.”

“But what I’m stealing is something they shouldn’t have in the first place, especially under the new king’s laws.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Tony, they’ve got pegasi, ten of them, all bound up and muzzled. They’re not supposed to do that. The pegasi are supposed to be free, like all Creatures are supposed to be free.”

Understanding dawned on Tonepheny, and he looked down at where the chain still stretched taught between them. Steve ran his fingers through Tonepheny’s crest again, his face twisting into a sorrowed mask. “The king’s men are supposed to be better than this. But since they’ve already done it, all I can do is undo it.”

“All right. All right. But what if they catch you? If they do, I’ll be trapped here.”

“They won’t catch me.”

“But what if they do?”

Steve bit his lip and furrowed his brow. “Are you saying you want to help?”

“I’m saying I don’t want to be left behind.” They stared at each other for a long moment, their breath fogging into the chill night air and mingling.

“All right. You can help. But you must do exactly as I say. Do you promise?”

“I promise.” The chain slowly slackened between them and Steve stood, offering Tonepheny a hand up.

“The pegasi are in a line on the edge of the camp. I studied the perimeter guards. There are too few of them and there are blind spots in their line, plus, they’re all facing outward. I don’t think they expect trouble this far north, and they’re certainly not expecting it from inside the camp. The fighting seems to have moved south with the encroaching winter. We’re going to sneak through a blind spot and go down to the line. I’ll explain to the pegasi what we’re going to do and you can help, but you must explain as quietly as possible. Into their ears, so the sound doesn’t carry. We have to untie every last one of them before they can take flight. The sound of them leaving will attract attention, and we have to be on the move by the time that happens. That’s the time when you must trust me the most. You’ll have to stay close to me, follow my movements exactly. I can get us out undetected, but you have to stay with me. Understood?”

“Yes. Yes, I understand.”

“Then let’s go.”

Tonepheny gathered his cloak close to hide the whiteness of his shirt under the moon. His leg plumage blended better with the darkness, and he was glad that the rock in this area was as red as he was. As quietly as he knew how, he followed Steve, but compared to him, Tonepheny sounded like a thundering elephant. It was embarrassing how much he stuck out, but Steve didn’t seem bothered by it, so Tonepheny was likely doing a passable job. When they reached the edge of the soldiers’ camp, Steve slowed his pace to a crawl and carefully maneuvered them between the lines. Tonepheny’s heart pounded in his ears the entire time, but no alarm was raised and no man stirred at their passing.

Just as Steve had said, there was a line of pegasi at the edge of camp, their wings, hooves, and snouts bound. Steve started and one end, Tonepheny at the other, and they carefully explained to each pegasus in turn what was about to happen. The pegasi grew more restless as they made their way to the center, but they remained still and blessedly quiet. When the plan had been explained, they doubled back to the ends of the lines and started untying the ropes that held the pegasi. Tonepheny took a moment to be grateful that it wasn’t chains, because they could not have broken those without a key or a good hammer. Each freed pegasus stood regally tall, stretching its wings and shaking its head. Tonepheny envied them even as he liberated them, watching as their freedom stretched across the sky in wings of white, gray, black, cinnabar, palomino. When the last two shook their ropes loose, Steve and Tonepheny stood back and Steve waved his hands. As one, the pegasi stampeded toward the perimeter, their hooves thundering on the ground and their wings clapping into the deafening night silence before raising them into the sky.

Steve was already running, even before the first pegasus had left the ground. He had Tonepheny by the hand and was making for the river’s edge. A guard stood there, but roused by the sound of the stampeding pegasi, he was looking in the wrong direction and then running in the wrong direction. He left a gap wide open and Steve and Tonepheny easily slipped past the outer-most line of tents. There were cries all over the camp now, men rising and futilely running after their escaped Creatures. Steve never stopped, his feet light over the terrain, and Tonepheny felt almost as if he were flying again, dragged along by Steve’s astounding speed. They ran over rocks, over tree roots, over uneven ground and little knolls of grass, but Steve never faltered, and thanks to his confidence, Tonepheny himself never felt afraid, though what they’d done was almost monumentally stupid.

Just as he felt his heart might implode with the exhilaration, Steve slowed his pace. He pressed a finger to his lips, asking for continued silence, but they moved sedately now, further and further away from the camp. Tonepheny ached to ask how Steve intended to get back to Libby, who remained west of the camp and possibly with searching distance of the soldiers, but just as he thought his burning curiosity might spill from his lips, Libby appeared in front of them, waiting, tail swishing with impatience.

“Up,” Steve whispered, helping Tonepheny to clamber onto her saddle, and before he could ask what Steve intended to do, Steve himself was there, right behind Tonepheny, pressed warm against him. When he had his seat, Libby cantered forward without a glance back. Before Tonepheny could even begin to worry about the rough forest terrain, they burst onto the road, and her steady hooves ate up ground, carrying them farther and farther away from the soldiers’ encampment.

The moon had nearly set by the time Steve pulled Libby to a halt, and the cold of the night was almost crippling. Tonepheny’s fingers, clenched on Libby’s pommel, had long gone numb, and even Steve, normally so warm, seemed to shiver as he dismounted. Still in silence, they made their way off the road and into the woods, setting up a rudimentary camp just at the bank of the river. The trees crept right up to the water’s edge and there was no sign of any soldiers in this area

Exhausted, Tonepheny struggled to help Steve liberate Libby of her packs and saddle, until at last, Steve shooed him into the fork of a massive oak’s roots. He followed shortly, cuddling closely to Tonepheny and intertwining their cloaks. “We should have time to sleep in tomorrow,” he murmured, his head drooping. “Get some rest.” As he nodded off, his head spilled to the side, coming to rest on Tonepheny’s shoulder, and Tonepheny in turn, rested his head on Steve’s soft golden hair. Like twining vines, they slept.

Tony woke to bright wintery sun the next morning, Steve still snoring softly next to him. At first, he couldn’t quite place what had jolted him from his dreams, and a panicky part of him wondered if the soldiers had found them after all, but then he saw her. A woman in the water, her hair dripping slick against her face, an impish smile dancing on her lips.

“Hello?” he said, tongue still thick with sleep.

“I saw what you did,” she said, her smile growing bigger.

“What?”

“I saw what you did for those pegasi. It was sweet. I’m glad someone helped them.”

Beside him, he realized that Steve was awake now, his body rigid with stress for a moment before settling back deeper into the tree roots. “It was only right,” he murmured, syrupy slow and every bit as sweet as she accused him of being.

“Still,” she said, stepping onto the rocky shore. She wore only a single flimsy silk shift, which clung wetly to her, but her wrists and neck were adorned with shells, and there was something strangely translucent about her. “I’m Janthe.” She extended a dripping hand and Tonepheny shook it hesitantly, glancing to Steve only to discover him averting his eyes and blushing as pink as a peach.

“Steve,” he croaked, taking her hand without looking.

“And I’m To … Tony.”

“Steve, Tony.” She looked long and hard at Tonepheny. “It’s been a long time since I last saw a harpy.”

“Most of my people fled Aspis.”

“Yet you’re still here.”

“It’s a long story.”

She glanced critically at the silver chain that stretched between him and Steve and raised an eyebrow. “Well, I won’t ask you for it, but I wanted to thank you. For the pegasi. And to see if you might need help in any way. I can’t do much beyond the river, but perhaps I can offer you passage?” She gestured lazily, and the river parted where she pointed, revealing the glistening stones beneath.

“Oh, that’s fine,” Steve said, holding up his hands, looking anywhere but at Janthe.

“Is he always this ridiculous?” she asked Tonepheny.

“I’m not sure,” he replied, teasing creeping into his voice. “He’s never seemed to mind that I wander about with my lower half exposed.”

Steve sputtered with indignity, and looked away even more determinedly.

She giggled at him and flicked her wrists. All of the water which soaked her shift and hair disappeared between one breath and the next, leaving her clothing opaque and her hair curling in toward her chin, making her look even more impish. “Well, if I can’t help you across, is there something else I can do?”

“We had heard,” Tonepheny said slowly, hardly daring to hope, “that the naiads of the Argentium make garments. We need a length of river silk. Do you know of such a thing?”

Janthe smiled pretilly. “Is that all? Why, I can just …” She tore a length from her shift and it floated gauzy before them, almost weightless, as though it were flowing through water. “Will this be enough?”

“Yes! That’s perfect. We don’t need much.”

She folded it carefully and handed it to Tonepheny, who handed it to Steve, who tucked it in next to the vial of golem’s tears they’d gathered from Bruce. “I can’t thank you enough,” Tonepheny said, shaking her hand again. “Truly, you have no idea how much we appreciate this.”

“Happy to help,” she said, rising. “I must be getting back. My sisters will be expecting me.”

“There’s more of you? You survived the … the king’s laws?”

“My dear harpy, we live underwater. Tell me how you think a human would even begin to capture us.”

“I don’t know. I’d heard …”

“Well, we know how to dodge foolish fishermen’s nets, and it’s not like any human could swim as fast or as long as us. All we had to do was stay out of sight.”

“I hope, I hope one day it’s safe for you again,” Tonepheny told her, standing to bid her farewell.

“Me, too, Tony. I hope one day it’s safe for all of us again.”

“Wait,” Steve cried before she completely disappeared below the water. “We need …” he blushed even redder, but continued, his face resolute. “We need a kiss from the wind. Do you know how we might get such a thing?”

She frowned up at them. “Why would want such a ridiculous thing? Wouldn’t a kiss from the river be much nicer?” She winked cheekily, and beside him, Steve gulped.

“As nice as that would be,” he said, “the oracle told us it must be a kiss from the wind.”

“Oh, an oracle? In that case, you might try the mountain where the Earth Mother’s temple sits. I’ve heard the god of the wind plays often there, and maybe he’d be willing to help you.”

“Thank you,” Steve called as she disappeared below the rapids. They both stared dumbly at the place where the froth swirled until it disappeared, and the river once again looked like a simple river, and then Steve laughed disbelievingly, joyously.

“We got it!” He jumped up and took Tonepheny by the elbows, dancing about with him until Tonepheny too was swept up in his joy. “We got it! I can’t believe we got it!” They laughed and danced about the clearing while Libby watched with a bemused expression, and for the first time, Tonepheny began to believe that perhaps the impossible was possible, that perhaps his wings could be restored.

Breathlessly, Steve came to a halt and smiled at him, as shining as the sun, so beautiful that Tonepheny’s heart seized. Abruptly his heart was filled with not only hope, but a strange new sensation which shivered up his spine and left him feeling rattled. It had been so long since he last desired another that he hardly knew what to do with the sensation, and so he tucked it away, determined not to think about it at all.

“Well,” Steve said after a moment, “I suppose that means we should head to the temple.”

“I suppose we should,” Tonepheny replied, and like that, their celebration was over, though they both still smiled as they broke camp and set off. Mount Ventus, on which the temple of the Earth Mother sat, was very near the Capitol, and so they turned westword and ever so slightly south, away from the soldiers’ encampments and the dangers of the border. Tonepheny was glad to put that all behind them.

Yet the episode with the pegasi lingered with him, like a sore in the mouth which one can’t help but poke. It took him several days to gather his courage, but when he at last did, he and Steve were huddled under a lean-to as harsh winter sleet fell. Libby leaned against a tree, her ears back, shooting dirty looks at them every so often, and Tonepheny vowed in his heart to find some way to shelter her the next time inclement weather struck.

“You move like a ghost,” he murmured to Steve, leaning close to be heard over the din of the sleet. “And you’re faster than any human I’ve ever seen. And Libby is no ordinary horse. Tell me true, you’re not human. What manner of Creature are you?”

Steve’s stare was a long hard one, and it which pinned Tonepheny to the spot and held him there like a stuck boar. Even in the darkness, Steve’s blue eyes pierced the night, an inescapable locus that drew Tonepheny ever closer. At last Steve sighed and looked away. “I suppose … No. I owe you an explanation. You’ve been a good companion, and you take such good care of Libby.”

Tonepheny nearly pointed out that it was he who owed Steve everything, but he bit his tongue, fearful of sending Steve off on a different topic and losing his opportunity to hear the truth.

“I told you that Lord Erskine believed in me, that he was the reason I was able to become a knight. And that’s true. But it’s not only because he trained me and provisioned me and saw to my commission. I was sickly and skinny when he took me under his wing just after my mother had passed. She’d been the apothecary he procured his herbs from, and at first I thought he just felt bad for me. But he began to train me.”

Steve laughed his little self-deprecating laugh. “I was hopeless. A dimwit at the sword, too weak to pull even the lightest bow, a pushover in hand-to-hand combat, and sick through half of training anyway. The only things I was good at were bookish things and horse-back riding. Libby, I chose her, even when all the other squires turned their noses up at her. She was as skinny as I was, knobby and small. But she was fast. Faster than anyone had guessed she would be.

“One day, Lord Erskine took me aside and told me he’d been working on a series of potions. He was a master potion-maker, though I’m given to understand his skills at other magics were less spectacular. The potions were meant to make a man stronger, hardier, healthier, to make him as great as the greatest knight, if not greater still.

“It was around this time that the harsher laws against magic were being passed. Creatures had already been … well, you know. I was anxious and afraid. It seemed wrong that all these wonderful men and women who’d done so much good in the world were being punished for no good reason. I wanted to help them. So when Lord Erskine offered me the potions, I said yes. So long as he helped Libby, too.”

Tonepheny guffawed. “The horse? All that power offered to you, and you demand he help the horse?”

“She was fast, but her back was bad. I couldn’t ride her long before she was in pain. I didn’t want to hurt her and I didn’t want to see her sent off to the butcher’s. And Lord Erskine smiled at me and said, ‘Of course. I wouldn’t leave your faithful steed behind.’ He was so kind.” The pain in Steve’s voice made Tonepheny suspect what was to come, so he folded back into silence and waited for the next part of the tale.

“The process took weeks. I was locked away from sight. My peers were told I’d been sent away for special training and special healing. Only Lord Erskine, myself, and his castle chamberlain, Margaret Carter, knew what was really being done.”

“The potions worked, I take it,” Tonepheny said, captured by the story. He tried to imagine Steve as small and skinny and sickly, but the notion simply seemed preposterous. How could Steve be anything but huge and hale and strong?

“They did. The process was excruciating, but in the end, I emerged like this. My peers were suspicious. Rumor flew that dark magics had been worked, that Lord Erskine had sent me off to be suckled by a demon. He … he was arrested and put to death. All for helping me be a stronger man.

“To my shock, my knighthood was still granted down from King Matthew. I suppose I seemed too valuable to simply be tossed aside. And I took it, because I was determined to shape the kingdom for the better, to undo the wrongs that were being done.”

“You were part of the coup,” Tonepheny said—not a question. He was absolutely sure of it as the words left his mouth.

“I was. Fury recruited me before he was king, asked me to work both sides. I hated it. One night raiding an apothecary, the next gathering evidence against Lord Alexander. Fury managed to keep me away from the more violent assignments, but I still … It didn’t feel like good work. It didn’t feel right.”

Steve’s eyes had grown distant; he seemed a man caught in the past, and as he spoke of it, his face carved itself into deep lines which aged him ten years. Unthinking, Tonepheny touched his hand, a soft caress that was there and gone again. With a grateful glance, Steve continued.

“When we branded Lord Alexander a traitor and installed Fury on the throne, I thought things would be better. I thought I’d be able to go and free all the Creatures who’d been imprisoned and heal all the mages whose hands had been cut off, but the first thing King Fury did was send a huge force to the eastern border to keep Latveria at bay, and he wanted me to go there, to be his general and Lord High Commander. He gave me a noble title. Me!

“I resigned and ceded my lands to Bucky.”

“Your friend, right?”

“Right. He’s married King Fury’s spymaster now. He was always … I don’t know. Better than me. At compromising. At doing what had to be done. Making the necessary sacrifies. I don’t work that way. He’s probably Lord High Commander now. Him or Sam.”

“And you just … wandered off into the woods?”

Smile crooked and eyes twinkling from under his lashes, Steve said, “I always liked the stories about dashing masked robbers, right up until they did something reprehensible. I thought I’d take up the mask, but then just do what I’d wanted to do all along. Help the people who’d been treated so poorly under King Matthew. Do good in Lord Erskine’s memory. Something like that.”

“And that’s why you rescued a crippled, starving harpy from some stupid sideshow.”

Steve looked again at Tony, his eyes that same searching, piercing blue. “Do you really think so little of yourself? Don’t you think you deserved to be free? Deserve to be free?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t a good harpy when I was younger. I was so cock-sure of everything. I bragged about my smithing skills far and wide, fashioned magnificent swords. Magnificent killing weapons. That’s why they captured me instead of just driving me off. The first slavers. They wanted me to make weapons for them, and I did. Everything they asked for and more. All that blood shed on the blades of my weapons. Including theirs. Another raiding tribe stole a cash of swords and killed them all with it, and when they took me captive, they had no idea I was the one who’d made it all. They refused to listen when I told them. They’re the ones who sold me to Tiberius, and he’s the one who …”

“Oh, Tony. Tony, that wasn’t … You know that wasn’t your fault, right?”

“But if I hadn’t, if I hadn’t been such a braggart, I would’ve escaped with the rest of the harpies. With my friends.” He hadn’t meant to cry, and certainly didn’t feel he had the right to cry in the face of all Steve had experienced, but the tears began to pour down his face all the same, and he ducked his head into his knees to hide it. Steve’s arm closed tight around him, his cloak adding an extra layer of warmth against the bitter winter cold, and he said not a word, only offered Tonepheny the comfort of a companion.

“My name,” Tonepheny whispered, fighting the roughness of his throat, “my name’s not really Tony. I lied to you. It’s Tonepheny.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Steve said, his breath hot across Tonepheny’s crest. “Would you like me to call you that?”

“No. No. I, I like it when you call me Tony.”

“Then Tony it is.”

They fell asleep like that, Tonepheny curled into a tight ball, and Steve curled into a ball around him, and though Tonepheny’s neck ached in the morning, he was glad, pleased even, that Steve had given him that gift.

 

* * *

 

 

The closer they drew to the Capitol, the easier Steve became on the road, until one day, for the first time since that disastrous attempt months ago on the Aurum, he led them to a town. This was no tiny farming village, with only a handful of cottages crammed together for warmth and safety. It was a true town, with businesses and houses, and even a temple with a tower that rose above the rest of the buildings. It was too large to have a fence and a set of gate guards, and so they wandered right in with not a trouble at all.

Tonepheny was nervous, conscious of how his feathered legs and talons must stick out compared to a human’s boots, but they warranted hardly a second glance at all. Even the innkeep barely blinked at them, and Tonepheny’s crested feathers gradually began to flatten and smooth out as he realized that in this town, truly no one cared that he was a Creature.

They rented a room for themselves and a stable for Libby for the night, and then Steve dragged him out to a grocer, a baker, and an apothecary’s. Strangely giddy, Steve was free with their coin, buying up sweet pastries, savory pies, a sack of onions, and a new supply of salves and ointments. “I love the smell of apothecaries,” he told Tonepheny as he inspected tins and vials and flasks of various herbal tinctures and potions. “It reminds me of my mother.”

“You must’ve loved her very much.”

“I did. She was a wonderful woman. Though sometimes I’m glad she didn’t have to experience what came after. The soldiers and the laws. I wouldn’t have been able to protect her from it.”

Weighed down with purchases, they made their way back to the inn, where Steve paid up for a hot meal, the most sumptuous thing they’d eaten since they left Wanda’s cottage. Tiny little golden brown hens, one for each of them; a golden pile of mashed tubers; mushroom soup; flagons of mulled wine; and fruit pies for dessert. Tonepheny hardly knew what to do with such rich food. He’d regained some of his weight under Steve’s care, but he remained wiry and hard, getting along as they did on road fair. Only a quarter of the way into his tubers, he had to push the meal back to rest, reclining in his chair and patting his belly.

“We should get you a few more shirts, too,” Steve said, looking at Tonepheny’s linen shirt, long gone yellow with road-wear.

“You know, normally my people don’t wear clothes at all,” Tonepheny pointed out, glancing from under his lashes with a sly look.

Steve flushed red and blustered. “Yes, well. I mean. The Shale Slides aren’t nearly as cold as this part of Aspis, are they? It’s snowing outside. Surely you must …”

Tonpheny laughed. “Steve, I’m teasing you. But don’t waste our money on me. I’m happy with what I have.”

With a bashful smile, Steve leaned back and studied him. “What do you think you’ll do? If we ever manage to break this chain and get your wings back?”

The question was so out of the blue, so shocking, that Tonepheny hardly knew what to do with it. When he’d been younger, he’d always fancied himself as a harpy with an eye toward the future, but years of enslavement had forced him to live in the moment, to focus only on his survival. And with Steve, his focus had been mostly on the quest for the objects the oracle had told them about and Wanda’s riddle. Though their success now seemed plausible, Tonepheny could hardly imagine what would follow.

“I don’t know. I suppose I could try to find my people. But I miss making things. I think,” he said slowly, chewing the words in his mind before he breathed them out, “I think I’d like to make things again. Not weapons, but things people need. Things that can help them.”

Steve’s approving smile filled Tonepheny with warmth and he hurriedly slurped at his soup as an excuse to look away. A part of him could not even imagine leaving Steve’s side now. They’d been traveling together for months, unable to part except when Steve looped Tonepheny’s chain over a branch, something which he’d done less and less the longer they’d been together. But of course Steve would want to move on. Tonepheny was only one Creature in a long line of Creatures whom Steve had freed, a single chapter in a much longer epic.

“What about you?” he boldly asked after a moment. “Do you think you’ll continue like this forever, following rumors of oppressed Creatures and mages and helping them?”

Echoing Tonepheny, Steve said, “I don’t know. I’m still young, but that won’t last forever. I suppose one day I’d like to do something else. Maybe settle down with a little farm or raise horses or something.”

“You once said you liked to make things, too.”

“Oh, I did. But I can’t imagine I’d ever be good enough to support myself doing it.”

 _I could support both of us,_ Tonepheny thought, but he didn’t dare voice the comment. He only sipped at his wine and let the conversation wane into comfortable silence.

After their indulgent supper, they slowly tramped their way up the stairs. Even Steve, who normally seemed to have a bottomless appetite, was sluggish from all the food. As far as Tonepheny was concerned, the fine meal was only an added bonus to the nicest part of staying in an inn—a feather bed. It had been so long since he’d slept in anything even resembling a roost, that the idea of hunkering down even on a human feather bed seemed outlandishly divine, a treat he’d never anticipated. Lazily, he crawled into the bed, laying spread-eagled and enjoying the feeling of floating, stretching his limbs luxuriously and reveling in such delicious comfort.

“Budge over, you bed hog,” Steve groused, and climbed in next to him. Tonepheny did so only with great reluctance, curling onto his side and burying his nose beneath the heavy down quilt. Steve blew out the candle and settled as well, and only in that moment did Tonepheny begin to realize the gravity of the situation. Though he and Steve had been huddling together at night and sharing cloaks for months, somehow this felt different. The fact that there was only one covering over them, the fact that Steve had shucked his shirt, the fact that the mattress sank towards the middle, driving their bodies inexorably together—it all combined to send a thrill through Tonepheny, and fear as well. This close, all he could think about was Steve’s arm curled toward him; his legs tangled with Tonepheny’s, ruffling his thigh feathers; his breath blowing softly across Tonepheny’s face.

“Are you all right?” Steve asked, his voice already syrupy with sleep. “You seem tense.”

“I’m … I’m just not used to a bed like this.”

“Are you uncomfortable.”

“I’m … I’m afraid I’ll scratch you.” That was hardly the truth, but it was worrying all the same. Tonepheny’s talons were finally sharp again, but normally when they slept side-by-side, Steve was in boots and there was no danger of accidental injury. Here, with Steve barefoot, Tonepheny very well might kick him in his sleep and do actual damage.

“Oh. Hmm. Here.” Without so much as a by-your-leave, Steve manipulated Tonepheny’s body until he was on his other side, his back to Steve, and then slotted himself neatly in so that they were pressed together from shoulder to foot, Steve’s legs carefully tucked where Tonepheny couldn't kick him. “Better?”

 _Worse. So much worse_. But Tonepheny only nodded and tried to force himself to relax, if only for Steve’s sake. Somehow, between one frantic, flushed thought and the next, Tonepheny managed to nod off, but his dreams were flashes of azure eyes, wheat-blond hair, fair skin and smooth muscles.

He woke slowly the next morning, warm and content, only to realize that perhaps his dreams had not been so strange, given that Steve was clutching him tight to his chest, breath ruffling the tiny downy feathers at the back of Tonepheny’s neck. Part of him wanted to stay like that forever, secure in Steve’s embrace, safe and full and content, but his wing stumps ached with the unfamiliar sleeping position, and the watery winter light was streaming in through the tiny window, reminding him that the outside world waited.

“Good morning,” Steve rumbled into his neck, still muzzy with sleep.

“Morning,” Tonepheny squeaked back. He waited for Steve to release him, for that delicious sense of closeness to disappear, but Steve lingered, his limbs twitching with micro-movements. “Tony?” he asked, syrupy slow, and the tone sent a zing down Tonepheny’s spine.

“Yeah?”

Steve was silent for so long that Tonepheny wondered if he’d drifted back to sleep again, but then he stroked Tonepheny’s forearm once and withdrew. “Nevermind. It’s not important.” He rose and began ruffling through their bags, and Tonepheny turned to watch, observing the flex of his back, the scattering of pale freckles which dotted his shoulders. He allowed himself one more longing glance and then rose to help, packing their things and sharing the pastries they’d purchased the day before as a delightfully sweet breakfast. Steve was strangely quiet through most of the morning, his eyes distant and his face lost in thought, but by noonday he was again himself, and Tonepheny thought no more of it.

As they neared the Capitol, the roads became wider and better cared for, but the rocky terrain made their progress slower. Aspis’ Capitol was surrounded on three sides by sharp rock formations, not large enough to be true mountains, but certainly tall enough to prevent any sort of invasion from any direction but the east. A river flowed out of her, eventually joining with the Argentium on its journey west to meet the Aurum, and the road followed the river for several miles, providing Steve and Tonepheny with plenty of freshwater fish, though other game was scarce.

The temple of the Earth Mother loomed closer with each day, and Tonepheny’s excitement grew. To have his wings again! Even bound to Steve, it would still be a miracle. Maybe he could carry Steve. Maybe they could go flying together, and then the chain wouldn’t matter at all. From time to time, they discussed Wanda’s riddle, but it didn’t feel pressing or important with the temple so near. And even with the chain, they were hardly inhibited. They’d learned how to move around each other, how to make sure they never got snagged up on anything, and because the chain stretched as easily as Steve willed it to, neither of them were ever caught up short.

“I wonder how you summon the wind god,” Tonepheny said one night, staring into their crackling fire.

“I suppose you leave offerings and then send up a prayer and hope for the best.”

“Do you really think that will work though? They say the wind god is one of those capricious ones, one of the ones you can’t rely on.”

“Well, if he doesn’t come, I suppose we’ll just wait and keep praying to him. We might have to be wind acolytes for a while, but that shouldn’t be too hard. I suppose we should pick up offerings, though. There’s another town between us and the Capitol. We can buy something there.”

“Is our coin holding up?”

"We have more than enough."

Emboldened by the upbeat nature of their chatter, Tonepheny continued, “Where do you get all the coin from. I know you took Tiberius’ lot, but even that’s surely run out by now.”

Steve blushed and looked into the fire, avoiding Tonepheny’s eyes. “I … um … well, I ceded my lordship to Bucky, but he wanted to make sure I was looked after.” Steve dug into his bags and pulled out a little gold seal, handing it to Tonepheny. “It gives me access to my coffers. I just show that to a royal post and they get me what I need. Besides, we haven’t spent that much. We’ve mostly hunted and gathered our own food.”

Tonepheny traced the delicate seal, a star which matched Steve’s scale mail, and behind it, a lion rampant and two laurel branches. “Was this your noble crest?”

“It … it was Lord Erskine’s. Except the star. The star was mine.”

“And your colors? Blue, surely.”

“Blue, white, and red.”

“I bet you painted a pretty picture in full livery.”

Ducking his head, Steve poked at the fire and then made a show of stretching. “I think there might be snow tonight. We should bed down before it starts.”

Tonepheny let it go, but his dreams that night were of Steve in a court full of shining lords and ladies. Steve shown the brightest of all, gallant in his full court livery, smiling and extending a hand to Tonepheny. He tried to grasp it, but his fingers never seemed to stretch far enough.

Steve's prediction proved true, and it snowed through the night and on into the next morning. Tonepheny woke to discover they were both covered in a dusting, and he grumbled and groused as he knocked the snow away. It made their travel slow, but they managed to make the town Steve had mentioned by that evening. While they were able to procure offerings fitting a wind god, they discovered that the inn was full up with travelers stranded by the snow, and instead ended up housed in the stables with Libby. Around them, horses whickered and stamped, and their earthy smell permeated everything.

“We’ll be there tomorrow,” Steve said. “Just at nightfall, we should reach the peak.”

“It’s that close?”

“The snow hid it today, but it’s just over the next hill. We have our climb and then we’re there.”

“Do they give shelter to pilgrims? I don’t like the idea of having to sleep out in the snow again.”

“They do. The Earth Mother is always generous to her followers. If it’s still snowing, we can stay there.”

On his bed of hay, Tonepheny hunkered down, looking up at Libby’s soft nose in the dark. Sensing his scrutiny, she bent to sniff at him, lipping his crest feathers before turning to give the same treatment to Steve.

“Will you miss us?” Steve asked. There was something strangely vulnerable in his voice, and Tonepheny peered into the darkness, trying to catch his expression.

“Of course I will. But this is only to get me my wings. It’s not like we’ve managed to slip the chain yet. You won’t get rid of me so easily, Steve.”

“I guess.” But Steve still sounded troubled, or maybe sad. As though he didn’t like the idea of Tonepheny being free of his chains.

For the first time in months, doubt crept into Tonepheny’s mind. What if Steve had no intention of freeing him? What if, once his wings were restored, Steve intended to sell Tonepheny on to the next buyer? He shook the ridiculous thoughts from his mind. He’d seen for himself that Steve only wanted to help Creatures, that he was a kind and gentle man, using violence only in the defense of others. It was ridiculous to fear such a thing.

But that night, Tonepheny dreamed that he was whole again, flapping up and up into the sky until abruptly he was yanked back. He looked down to see a heavy chain trailing from his ankle, and it dragged harder and harder. At the other end was Steve, Steve who looked up with sad eyes, yet inexorably pulled Tonepheny back down to earth. “I can’t let you go,” he said, and Tonepheny woke with a start, a sense of urgency sinking deep into his chest.

Outside, the wind had picked up and the snow was still falling in fine curtains. Steve joined him at the stable door, looking out into the poor weather. “Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose there’s always tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I don’t think it’s safe to travel in this, Tony. Especially not for Libby.”

“Are you sure? I think we can make it. This snow can’t hold up.”

“Tony, I—“

“Please, Steve. Please. I’m … I’d really, I just want to get my wings back.”

Steve looked torn, glancing back out into the snow again, but at last he sighed. “We have to be careful. Promise me. If I say Libby needs to stop, you’ll stop?”

“I promise.”

So Steve saddled up Libby, Tonepheny gathered their packs, and together, they journeyed out into the wind. The going was slow. The snow had piled up ankle deep, and though the wind blew a great deal of it off the road, they still struggled to make headway. Tonepheny’s talons were freezing in no time, but he grit his teeth and ignored them, determined not to be the weak link. Libby kept glancing at them both as if to say, “Are you people crazy?” but she soldiered on, her legs churning steadily through the snow.

It was past mid-day before Tonepheny realized that they’d been climbing steadily for some time. “Are we on Mount Ventus?”

“We have been for a while,” Steve replied. His hands shook as he passed jerky to Tonepheny. A quick glance revealed that his face was white, save for high spots of color in his cheeks and he looked miserable.

“Steve, are you all right?” Even as he voiced the question, Tonepheny realized that Steve had been walking ahead of him since they’d first set out, breaking a trail in the snow to make Tonepheny’s passing easier. He hadn’t even noticed.

“I’m fine. Just wish we could get out of the wind for a bit.”

“I’ll break trail for a while. You follow after me.”

“Tony, you’re barefoot. And a warm-weather Creature to boot. You shouldn’t have to—”

“It was my insistence that got us into this mess. The least I can do is take some of the brunt for you. Besides, I have naturally warm pants, and you’re wandering around in cotton breeches."

“Tony—”

“It’s fine, Steve. Really.” Tonepheny wished he had his wings so he could wrap them around Steve, protect him from the biting wind. Soon. Soon. The word pounded in time with his blood, driving him forward.

Rather than improving, as Tonepheny had hopefully suggested in the early morning, the weather began to get more and more violent as the afternoon progressed. The snow came down in flakes that stung and burned like sand, and the wind chapped his cheeks raw. It howled all around Mount Ventus, buffeting them back and forth. If it weren’t for Libby, Tonepheny wouldn't have even been able to find the trail, but blessedly, she seemed sure of herself as she nosed forward.

Dark was falling and still they hadn’t found the temple. Tonepheny was torn—to continue in the blinding snow and darkness would be incredibly dangerous, but to stop was to invite death by exposure. He’d heard stories of men and Creatures who dug snow caves to survive inclement weather, and wondered if he and Steve might do that, but they wouldn’t be able to protect Libby if they did. No. The only way was forward.

Quite suddenly there was a flash of lightning, and the sky growled down at them. Tonepheny heard a shout and turned only in time to see Steve loose his footing and skid backward down the slope, picking up speed until he struck a rock with a sickening crack.

“Steve! Steve!” Libby screamed with him, and as one, they scrambled haphazardly back down the slope to Steve’s prone body. Overhead lightning flashed again, revealing Steve, limp in the snow, unmoving. Tonepheny gathered him close, turning him over to inspect him.

Blood covered half of his face, flowing from a head wound. He was unmoving, even more frighteningly pale than he had been when they’d stopped for their mid-day meal. Tonepheny pressed his ear to Steve’s mouth, waiting for the sound of breath or the feeling of it on his skin. He nearly wept when he felt it, the tiniest puff of warm air across his earlobe. Libby was crowded behind him, her hot breath in his crest, her knees to his back.

Tonepheny grunted with the effort of hoisting Steve, solid, heavy, and armored, and tried to get him onto Libby’s back, but she was too far out of Tonepheny’s reach. Panting with exertion, sweating with panic, Tonepheny searched the path for some place to shelter, but there was nothing, not even a single tree. He turned to Libby, wishing she could speak a true tongue, could offer advice.

“We have to get him out of the cold. The only way to do that is to reach the temple. Can you guide me?” She bowed her head and turned about, pacing herself to his halting progress. As true night fell around them, they trudged onward. Tonepheny’s world narrowed to Libby’s hooves in front of him, carefully tracking each step she made. He followed her path exactly, gradually numbing to Steve’s weight, to the cold, to everything but the next step. His body screamed at him, but it was distant, something to worry about later, when Steve was safe.

Step. _My fault._ Step. _My fault._ Step. _My fault._

If only he had been more patient. If only he hadn’t insisted they set off into uncertain and treacherous weather. If only he had trusted in Steve.

It took a very long time for Tonepheny to realize that Libby had stopped, and even longer to realize that the howling around them had dimmed to a distant roar. Thundersnow cracked overhead, but it was muffled, and its flash scattered into bars of light and shadow. The temple. The temple.

 _We’re here_ , Tonepheny tried to say to Libby, but his teeth were chattering too hard to form the words. A fire burned at the altar, but the scones had long since burned out, and if any priests or priestesses were in attendance, they were already long abed, oblivious to their guests. Shaking, Tonepheny limped forward and placed Steve beside the fire.

His face was pale, lips gone blue, blood frozen and dry on his face. Tonepheny felt helpless as he bowed forward and put his ear to Steve’s lips, feeling for breath. There. There, but barely. So weak.

“No,” Tonepheny whispered, rising to look down at his beautiful face. “No. No. You can’t leave me now. Not when we’re so close. Please, Steve. Please. I … I love you.” He bent and brushed his lips to Steve’s, willing his own breath to go to Steve, to give him some of what little warmth remained in Tonepheny.

Nothing happened.

“No,” he whispered again. Behind him, Libby made not a sound, but she gradually sank to the ground, awkwardly falling to her side. “No, Libby. No. Don’t give up.” He crossed to her and petted her beautiful face, tried to clear the frost from her eyelashes with his clumsy fingers. “Steve needs you,” he told her, combing the ice from her mane. He doffed his own wool cloak and wrapped it around her, stripped away his shirt and draped it over her neck, trying to give her his own body heat.

“I’ll fix this,” he whispered. Sluggishly, he dug through their packs until he found the golem’s tears and the naiad’s silk, as well as the offerings that had been meant for the wind god. He brought them to the altar, laying them next to Steve’s body, and prostrated himself to the Earth Mother.

“I haven’t brought everything you asked me to bring. But please. I don’t need my wings. I don’t want them. Take what’s here and please bring Steve back to me. Bring Libby back to him. Don’t take them away. I’ll give you all of me. Please.”

Tonepheny waited as the wind howled fiercely outside. Another boom of thunder cracked through the air, and the altar fire flickered, but only in a draft. There was nothing. No response. Tonepheny wept, crowding closer to Steve, cradling him and holding him tight. He fell asleep that way.

 

* * *

 

 

In his dreams, a woman appeared to him. At first, she reminded him of his mother, and then she reminded him of the eyrie elder, a woman bent with age, her bedraggled wings no longer able to carry her, and then she reminded him of no one at all, simply a woman, but one he could barely stand to look at, her hair bright and shining in the summer sun. She came to him across a wide sea of grass, and from her hem, there sprang flowers, fruits, trees, which rose up and withered away in an instant. He was spellbound by her, unable to look, but also unable to look away.

“Tonepheny, my child. You have been so brave. In your time with this human, your hurts have healed, and you have learned to love again. Did you truly think I would forsake you, my child of the wind?” She bent and pressed her lips to his forehead

He felt as though he couldn’t breathe, as though every fiber of his being had forgotten how to be him. Her hands touched his wing stumps, and he became pain. He was no longer a body, simply a wire stuck in a furnace, heated to cherry red and pressed to skin. Every inch of him curled and blistered and longed for an end. And then he was a body again.

“Wake, my child.” She touched each of his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

The temple was bright with morning light. A young woman bent over Tonepheny, fussing with the blanket which wrapped him from head to talon. She noticed he was awake and bustled to his head.

“It’s a blessing of the Mother you made it. When did you get here? _How_ did you get here? We thought with the blizzard, we wouldn’t be receiving pilgrims for days.”

“Steve,” he croaked, trying to sit up.

She pressed him back down and he realized he was in a bed. His entire body was a solid ache, and could scarcely move at all. “Your companion? He sleeps still. Truly, _how_ did you get here?”

“Is he …?”

“He is fine. We cleaned his head, but the wound was nothing more than a scratch. Head wounds always seem to bleed a lot, don’t they?”

“And Libby?”

“That must be your horse. She’s stabled with our mules, though she doesn’t seem too happy about it. We gave her a good rubdown and some apples, though, and that seemed to please her.”

“Thank you.” She pressed a cup of water to his lips and he drank gratefully before dropping back into bed, unable to support his own weight anymore.

“Go back to sleep. The Mother will not mind. She is patient.” And because sleep sounded nice, and because his body ached so fiercely, Tonepheny slept.

 

* * *

 

 

When next he woke, Steve was bowed over him, hands clasped and eyes closed. He looked healthy, whole, blessedly alive. _Steve_ , Tonepheny tried to say, but all he managed was a feeble croak.

“Tony!” Steve’s big hands were on him in an instant, helping him to sit up, tilting water to his lips, running fingers through his crest. “You’re alive,” Steve whispered, and his expression … Tonepheny did not know what to make of that pained expression.

“How long …?”

“A few days. I’m so glad you’re awake.”

He tilted more water to Tonepheny’s lips and then helped him to sit upright, his hands steadying, his face close.

“Libby?”

“She’s fine. Giving the mules hell.”

“You?”

Steve’s expression softened, and he ran a hand through Tonepheny’s crest again. “I’m fine. You saved me.”

Regret welled up in Tonepheny’s throat, a ball that threatened to choke him. “You wouldn’t have needed saving if I’d just listened. I’m sorry, Steve.”

“No, Tony. No. Don’t be sorry. Maybe things didn’t go exactly according to plan, but … now that you’re up, you have to tell me how you did it.”

“Did what? Got you up the mountain?”

“No. No, Tony. Your wings. How did you get the wind god’s kiss? And how did you break the chain?”

“The chain?” Tonepheny looked between them, but his hands were buried under the blankets. He fought with their clumsiness and managed to get them into the open air where he discovered that they were bare, that there was nothing stretching between him and Steve. “It’s gone?”

“It’s gone.”

“It’s gone!” Tonepheny said, looking up at Steve in wonder. And then everything tilted. “Wait. You said, my wings?”

Steve’s smile was radiant to behold, and he stood, offering Tonepheny a hand. With Steve’s help, he stumbled to his feet, his whole body still aching fiercely. Steve walked him to a tiny wash basin, and over it, there hung a small oval mirror. It was just large enough that Tonepheny could see. There they were. Whole. Clean. Scarlet and gold feathers sweeping over his shoulders. Disbelieving, he thought about moving them and watched as they fluttered feebly, the ache of them turning his back into a bed of hot coals. Still, he couldn’t quite believe. He reached down with one hand, and there. His fingers. Touching a flight feather. His skin told him the feather was moving, jolted uncomfortably as it was jostled out of place.

“My wings,” he breathed, overwhelmed. His knees collapsed beneath him, but Steve was there, bearing him up and carrying him back to bed. “My wings,” Tonepheny said again. His brain only had room for his wings, Steve, and Libby. Nothing else mattered.

With an indulgent grin, Steve tucked him back under the covers. “I’m so happy for you, Tony.” His expression fell a little, he looked away, toward the door of the little chamber where Tonepheny was being kept. “I guess … but the story. But if you’re tired, you don’t have to tell me.”

“What is it, Steve?” Tonepheny managed to ask, frightened by the sudden look of consternation on Steve’s face. He looked pained by something.

“Oh, I don’t know. I was thinking, you’re probably sick of me and Libby by now. So if you … I mean, it seems like it’s time for she and I to take off, now that you’re well. The path down Mount Ventus is clear again, so I can just—”

Tonepheny’s hand shot out, grasping Steve’s arm for all he was worth. “The kiss wasn’t from the wind god. It was my kiss. My kiss was the payment.”

"I don't understand. I thought ..."

Something itched at the back of Tonepheny's mind, and he frowned, waiting for it. Steve seemed to sense his churning thoughts, because he grew quiet and waited.

"It ... my mother. She used to sing me a lullaby. I can't remember the words." Tonepheny hummed the melody, trying to jog his memory. "... sea and sun ... day is done ... Wind Father waits, Earth Mother waits, for their baby, for you, their little sweet harpy ..." The melody died away, and Tonepheny's frown deepened. "I always thought it was just a story. The elders used to say we were children of the wind. I thought it just meant that we flew on the wind. But maybe ..."

"That makes you the wind," Steve finished, his smile soft and radiant. It dimmed though and he looked more troubled. "But who did you … oh.” His lips parted, his eyes gradually widening with wonder. “Me?”

Nerves crawled up the back of Tonepheny's throat, threatening to silence him, but the thought of losing Steve had been so terrifying, so consuming. he had to speak, if only to make Steve understand. “You. I kissed you. You were dying, Steve, and I just thought if I could give you a little of my warmth ... And I understand if you still want to leave, but I’m in love with you, Steve. And I just wanted you to know. You mean everything to me. I … I can’t begin to express how much it means, all the kindness, all the care you’ve shown me.”

Tonepheny wasn’t sure what he expected Steve to say, but it certainly wasn’t a murmured, “Bound by magic, only tighter bonds may break me.”

“What?”

Steve glanced up, his expression shifting from wonder to a soft, beautiful smile, a smile Tonepheny had never seen on his face before. “It’s what Wanda said about the chain. ‘Bound by magic, only tighter bonds may break me.’ Like maybe a bond of love?”

Understanding began to dawn in Tonepheny’s mind, and he again felt overwhelmed. “Do you mean …?”

Bowing, Steve touched their foreheads together, his fingers gentle on Tonepheny’s jawbone. “I think I do mean.”

Tonepheny returned the gentle touch, and though his entire body still ached, it felt unimportant compared to the warmth that now surged through him. “Steve,” he breathed, afraid to close his eyes for fear it would all disappear. “Am I dead?”

Steve huffed a laugh, his breath warm and sweet over Tony’s face, and then closed the distance between them to kiss him. “You are very much alive. And I’m so happy you are. I love you, Tony.” Another kiss, another whisper of devotion, and then they sprang apart when the door opened, and the young woman from before bustled in. She grinned knowingly at them before shooing Steve out. “My patient needs his rest,” she insisted haughtily as she shoved him out the door. “And I suspect he’ll get none of that while you’re here.”

While she wiped him down and fed him willowbark tea and a simple meal of bread and soup, Tonepheny was barely cognizant of anything at all. Steve loved him. Steve loved him. Steve loved him. Each time he thought it, it was like experiencing it all over again, a wave of euphoria that made him boneless and warm. When his nurse had gone, Steve snuck back in, and without a word between them, he crawled into Tonepheny’s bed and they curled around each other, drifting off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

_One year later_

 

Tony bowed over the pot, checking it one last time for even heating, and then quenched it in the water, watching in satisfaction as steam billowed up into the air. He pulled the pot out again and set it aside to cool, wiping the sweat from his brow and looking out onto the street. The winter solstice was approaching, so Steve should be home any day now with Libby. They’d promised to spend the holiday together. But the sun had nearly set and the streets were quiet, so Tony, with a sigh of longing, locked up the forge and made his way to their living space at the back.

He was just planning another supper of cold beef and bread when he realized that the window was yellow with the glow of the fire. With a whoop of joy he ran, flapping his wings for even more speed, and crashed through the door, not even sorry for making a ruckus. Steve caught him with open arms and kissed him, holding him as though he intended never to let him go.

“You’re back,” Tony breathed when they finally parted.

“I promised you,” Steve said, as if that explained everything. In a way, it did. Tony kissed him again and then shed his leather smock, ducking back out of doors to greet Libby in the stable. Packed in with a warm blanket and a bag of good feed, she barely flicked an ear at him, but her eyes glittered with amusement. She was glad, in her own way, to see him.

He returned just in time to find Steve unpacking a hamper of food which looked to be from Thor’s inn down the street. “Oh my. Are we celebrating? Shouldn’t we wait for the holiday?”

“This is celebrating something else?”

“Oh? Oh. Let me guess. You liberated a herd of centaurs?”

Steve shook his head.

“You stopped a smuggling ring of Creature poachers?” A shake. “You restored a dryad to her tree? You returned a skin to a selkie? You managed to broker a peace between a fox spirit and the village whose chickens it was stealing?”

Still, Steve shook his head, an impish smile playing at his lips, and at last, Tony settled down beside him, nestling into his side and wrapping his wings around them both. “I don’t know then, tell me.”

“I’ve just been from court.”

Tony stiffened. They had moved to the Capitol because it was the safest place for a Creature like Tony, but Steve was always careful to keep out of the circles of the nobles, where he was most likely to be recognized. It had been bad enough when a soldier had pointed him out and said, “Captain?” in the middle of a crowded street. That had been a hell of a way for Tony to learn that his beloved was not simply a contributor to the coup, but was in fact the infamous Captain who’d headed King Matthew’s forces before neatly deposing him and installing King Fury.

Steve blushed and held up his hands. “Hear me out. I … I saw Bucky. I missed him, and he promised not to tell anyone else I was here, and when he heard what I’ve been doing, that I was the ‘Nomad’ who’s been rumored all over the country, he suggested I head a task force to continue fighting for magical and Creature rights in the kingdom.”

“Oh?” Tony studied Steve carefully, trying to gauge how he felt about this.

“Tony, I’m not getting any younger. And I want to be near you. I love my work, but if I do this, I can stay closer and still help, still do what I feel like I was meant to do.”

“But will you be happy, my love?” Tony ran his thumb over Steve’s cheek.

“I think I will be,” Steve said, his eyes full of hope.

“Then I think we’ll manage,” he kissed Steve again and then turned to the meal. “But I will be eating all those pies.”

“Oh no you won’t,” Steve rumbled, snatching a pie and holding it just out of reach. Tony laughed and danced up, his wings flapping and filling their home with a brief breeze. Steve laughed too, and they fell into a tangle, rolling together, happy, content, whole.

**Author's Note:**

> Themes of Slavery: Tonepheny lives in a kingdom that recently stripped magical creatures and magic users of their rights. He is enslaved under these circumstances. When a new regime is installed, these laws are repealed, but there are dastardly folks who still keep Creatures enslaved, and the king doesn't have enough forces to protect them all. Steve buys Tonepheny in an effort to save him from being killed at the hands of Tiberius Stone. Steve has absolutely no intention of treating Tonepheny like a slave, and he's really only trying to help, but Tonepheny doesn't know that at first.
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/) for more fanfiction and nerdery.


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